Look, I understand, its just common courtesy to pretend that Americans want to go somewhere else, but really, other countries have diseases…
Does Chicago even have potable water?
I visited a year or so ago and had trouble finding some. Fortunately, I had a potable phone on me, and was able to call for help.
I have been able to travel to the US most of my life, since 9/11 I, and most people I know, only visit when we absolutely must (twice for me). A shame really because it is the cheapest vacation abroad I can get. And I am a (foreign) US taxpayer.
I can’t imagine that many people would like to deal with all the red tape and funky travel restrictions nowadays. Even if it is all a myth, the US has ceased to be a travel-friendly destination in the minds of the rest of the world. I traveled to Spain a year before 9/11 and a year after the Madrid attack, nothing had changed, we were not bothered any more than before.
This. We all knew you had no chance. It all came down to Rio and Madrid, but we knew Madrid is too close to Barcelona and London to have got it. I fail to see why you were surprised AT ALL.
The way I see it, the President is (among many many other things) sort of like the mayor of the city of United States, and part of the mayor’s job is to be a town booster. You know, “rah rah our city is great, come and spend your tourist dollars here!” Traveling to other areas of the country/world and talking up why people should come to us, stressing why our tourist destination is better than others - what we would expect from a mayor or town council. It’s part of the job to talk up the “town” of the United States.
This was part of that - “hey, come to Chicago, Olympics, and here’s why!” Not all towns can successfully attract all tourist dollars, though, so this “failure” seems more like a “oh well, we can’t convince everybody to visit us - time to head back home and keep handling the rest of my job” event than an actual failure of anything.
Claims that Obama spent too much money traveling there - well, I suppose Obama and his family could live in tents on the lawn of the White House until they prove to us that they deserve to be able to do the job for which we hired him, which, among other things, involves that “rah rah we’re the best tourism destination” outreach.
Claims that Obama was distracted from more important things - he can multi-task, and if it was a, what? 24-hour trip to Denmark? I would expect that 6 - 8 of those hours were spent sleeping, another 1 - 2 showering and eating meals, so that leaves 14 - 17 hours to meet with the I.O.C. and engage in the boosterism needed, as well as whatever else he did. Obviously, he could have spent any downtime on the plane playing video games and smoking a big fat doobie, but I think we’d have heard about that. I am more likely to think that he was engaging in other leader-of-the-free-world-related activities.
But I’m yelling into a hurricane, I know.
I know you’re kidding, but for the benefit of anyone who isn’t sure that wasn’t a typo.
Well, yes, but I do have to walk 2 miles uphill (both ways!) to get to the community water source to get any. It’s a bitch in the winter.
What kidding?
BBC SPORT | Other Sport... | Olympics 2012 | Blair and Beckham boost 2012 bid who was taking care of England?
Well the BBC, CNN International and Al Jazeera seem to disagree with you. They all believed it was between, at least according to their talking heads last week, Rio and Chicago, specifically BECAUSE of Obama. Chi-Town was the bookmakers fave as well. Toyko was the longest shot, Madrid was unlikely because of London hosting recently. I didn’t know that S. America had never hosted, and good for Rio, although I still think Chicago being out in the first round was a slap in the face.
Regarding travel to the US; Having just come from Italy in the last week (which is where I heard the aforementioned speculating) I find the European attitude toward internal physical security to be exceedingly lax. I don’t mean that to be insulting, of course being lax makes it easy to get around, I didn’t have to take my shoes off to get on an airplane, cars and scooters were parked and being driven on sidewalks in front of all manner of museums and government buildings. That’s likely because the countries of the EU aren’t targets the way we are. Nevermind how we got to BE targets, we can’t unring the bell. If it’s hard to come here, it’s because it should be, because it has to be. The price of vigilance is often convenience, and the price of security, often a measure of freedom.
I live in downtown Chicago, I spent the better part of a week in “Downtown” Rome. I found it at once filthy and charming, beautiful and dangerous. I found the people to be as warm and friendly as any I have ever known, but the place was full of targets. Bank guards standing on the street with sub machine guns draped over their shoulders, mindlessly chatting with each other and pretty girls could have easily been overtaken. It’s a slack attitude that comes with a comfort that is not available to America or Americans.
Oh, please. Terrorism is hardly some unknown phenomenon in Europe; they’ve been hit much more often than we have. And American “security precautions” are unlikely to have any real effect at stopping terrorism; they were mainly instituted to crack down on and harass Americans the government didn’t like; not terrorists.
Former Republican P.J. O’Roarke said it perfectly:
“The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”
One of the best bits of satire on Saturday Night Live was a political roundtable with a group of pundits theorizing how President Reagan would have done things so much differently if he had survived the assassination. “I think a strong union man like Dutch Reagan would have been appalled by Bush’s strike-busting tactics with the air traffic controllers”.
…and he does have a very nice plane.
Facist, much?
How dare you suck so gluttonously on the teat of common sense. So greedily did you suck up its milk you left not a drop for the poster right after you. Tsk, tsk.
More like American exceptionalism and self martyrdom than common sense.
Man, that’s deep. That sounds like something Benjamin Franklin would post.
Are you sure you’re not, like, a time-traveling Benjamin Franklin? 'Cos I can hardly tell you two apart.
But nice imagery on magellan01’s part nonetheless.
Ahh, you just like thinkin’ about teats.
America runs on fear. What’s in your fridge can kill you. Film at 11. Next, sharks and killer bees. But first, an ad for a small parachute that can save you when you jump out of a skyscraper during the next terrorist attack.
I’ll have to believe you, having no reason to doubt your honesty, but I have not seen any non-American pundit put Chicago as a front-runner.
I am going out on a limb here, but I am pretty sure that some EU countries, and Spain specifically, have more experience with terrorism, and for longer than the US. Just saying. This terrorism thing didn’t just spring up in the 21st century.
Notice I said I travelled to Spain shortly before and after major terrorism events. I was made to take my shoes off in Switzerland of all places though, but that’s because I made the mistake of travelling there with a pair of boots that set off alarms from a mile away (straight into the garbage they went, shoes should not have that much metal).