I see the episode as illustrating the profound corruption of the Obama regime. This guy owes a lot to his backers (the Cook County/Chicago Mob). The big real estate guys stood to make a fortune off the Olympics-the fact that Obama could not deliver bodes ill for his political future.
I don’t understand your position. Are you trying to say that the President and the First Lady’s flights involving a 747, a 757 and all the support aircraft/cars/secret service were justified by a meeting with a General which required yet another aircraft. Is that your position? Seriously? The money wasted on the General’s flight alone would have been over $8,000. It was a 25 minute meeting on the tarmac that could have been done with a teleconference on AF1 for free.
How is this a fine reason?
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IMO, the US isn’t getting the games for a while. IOC has lately leaned into a position that host cities must provide a guarantee from the host nation as to who will cover any budget overruns, and in the US that is not going to happen. Also, after the SLC scandals, the selection committee can no longer junket to the candidate towns to be fêted in style as they oncve used to; they probably resent that too (and as usual feel it’s not their fault for being corrupt but ours for not having been able to keep it quiet).
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This was one very wasteful calling in of chips for Daley with the Obamas, but I can understand that Daley probably would have been in hot water with his base and donors if he could not deliver an endorsement from the President. Though I can imagine some future favor-calling can end up along the lines of:
D: “You gotta get me those earmarks. After you went and we washed out you owe the hometown crowd to throw somethign our way.”
O: “You gotta be joking. You make me waste my time doing a Chamber of Commerce pitch, for nothing, and now I owe YOU?” -
God, I can’t wait for Oprah Winfrey to announce her retirement.
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As someone mentioned above, the early washout of Chicago may have been an instance of “strategic” bloc-voting to eliminate what had been until then the primary contender to be in the final with Rio, achieved by the Brazilians actually having done some good, hard lobbying legwork not just at the IOC but with the member Committees, specially with the Africans and the rest of the Americas.
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Honduras, schmonduras. Outside of Latin America nobody really cares, PLUS the US is doing the right thing (no even Zelaya wants us to actually intervene to overthrow the coup and restore him at the point of American guns, figurative or literal) for a change.
It used to be that our president would fly to Baghdad with a cardboard turkey for Thanksgiving, and this was a noble and proper endeavor. It used to be that our president would delay an aircraft carriers homecoming so that he could parade his manly bits around the deck in a too tight flight suit, and this was wonderful beyond compare.
Now I see a president trying to bring an economic boost to a major American city, and talk to his top general about conducting a war that the previous administration left to rot for seven years, and people have the gall to bitch about plane fare?
To hell with em.
It illustrates quite well that you just made up a bunch of crap-ola.
You assume that Obama is corrupt, therefore this illustrates his corruptness? What? Do you think that this is a logical argument?
Hard to say but it took him 3 months to pick out a dog and even then it took a dying Senator’s intervention so we really can’t give him credit for that.
While he was working on the Chicago Olympic bid he could have been working on something else. We’re at war and he can’t make up his mind about troop strengths. We are in the middle of the worst economic event in the last 70 years which involves a housing crisis, a banking crisis, and high unemployment. These are the problems he should be working on. He’s accomplished nothing (add this to his list).
Flying across an ocean to hand out autographs wasn’t going to change anyone’s mind. He had nothing extra to bring to the meeting except a smile and a huge carbon foot print (at tax payer’s expense).
It use to be that Presidents supported the troops. This one couldn’t make a decision about a dog let alone the extra troops needed.
Never mind, really not relevant
Magiver, why don’t you support the troops? When did you stop supporting them?
Whoever advised him that this venture was worth the risk of the political capitol was sorely mistaken. On the other hand, it could well have been at the request of the Chicago machine, to which Obama owes his political existence.
One can only imagine the Obama media fanfare that would have taken place had the results been different. In reality, we have a public slap down by the IOC and a president returning hime with his tail tucked between his legs (or at least that will be the impression fostered by too large of a % of the populace).
At best, he has returned with a badly tarnished star.
Over a sporting event? Nonsense. the only people who think this is an enormous deal are the people who already frothed at the mouth with hate for him. The people who would spin any result as a disaster and a sign of either incompetence or evil.
For everyone else it’s a minor blip that’ll be forgotten in no time.
Piffle. There is precious little that he can do in the Oval Office that he can’t do in Air Force One. So he has a couple of working plane rides and gives a speech that someone else took time to write for him. The impact on his time was minimal at most. Again, the right wingnuts would be crucifying him if he hadn’t gone and the result was the same.
I think a lot of US citizens, politicians and commentators need to get over themselves a bit.
A lot, I’m not saying all, seem to think that this is all about the US either getting snubbed or a failure of Obama’s power. It’s as if the other countries didn’t have a chance unless the a US wasn’t on the table.
There are a lot of reasons to pick a host for the Olympics and no all of them are US-centric.
The US has had two summer Olympics in my life time, Atlanta and L.A. which is more than any other country. No country in South America has ever hosted.
I’m not saying US/international politics weren’t in play in the choice but to hear a lot of Americans talk you’d swear that it was all just about America getting it or not in isolation of all other bids.
I have to say that regardless of anything Obama may or may not have done, Rio seems a more sensible choice. Rio’s star is on the rise politically and economically, and as noted South America is overdue to host. Whereas the US has had SLC, Atlanta and Los Angeles in recent memory.
I suspect Chicago is better off out of it anyway. While it was nice that London was picked over Paris for 2012, the upshot is that I get six years (if I’m lucky) of higher taxes to pay for the privilege of having a month of the transport system being jammed up with people going to games I can’t afford to see. Paris would have been welcome to them, IMHO.
I still have not read a single valid argument that this was a personal failure for Obama, that Obama wasted his time going over there, or that this in any way damages his political credibility or wastes political capital.
Venues built on the former Meigs Field might have enough permanence to them to keep the airport from ever reopening. So this is a good thing.
That was a great SNL opening sketch, wasn’t it?
Two relevant responses:
From this week’s Democratic Underground “Top 10 Conservative Idiots:”
And a rather surprising one from The Nation:
(Sour grapes? You be the judge.)
Remarkably silly. The cubic mile of money that would have been necessary will now be spent on a host of other things that will affect employment - many of which will last longer than the 2016 Olympic Games.
And I think Mayor Daley can in the aftermath be counted on to go after federal funds for a bunch of projects claimed to do some of the wonderful things the Olympics were supposed to.
I think The Nation’s take on this is accurate, except for this part:
He would have been much more fortunate if Chicago has finished second (as many expected). Then it would have been an honorable failure, losing to a country and continent that has never hosted a Games. Finishing last was much more of a blow.
This Chicago Tribune article says Obama’s decision to go was made late, based on intelligence that proved faulty.
A telephone call from the White House would be a lot cheaper than the cost of flying a 747 to Copenhagen and back. If the First Lady had not taken a separate plane that would have been cheaper also.
There wasn’t anything they could contribute to this venture that the Olympic committee would care about so it was really an expensive publicity event that didn’t pan out.