Re: Who’s Rooting Against America?
- 10.05.2009 - 2:26 PMPete, you’ve spotted another outbreak of double standards on the Left, which is becoming all too common. But why should we be rooting for the Olympics? Sure, Chicago politicians stood to benefit, but what about the rest of us — or even the people who live there? The Washington Post — hardly a bastion of Obama-bashing — looked at the Olympic myths and concluded that the Games never pay for themselves, don’t deliver a job boost for the host city, don’t result in a net boost to tourism, don’t permanently change the landscape of the host city, and don’t result in any permanent increase in sports participation for the host country.
It is, however, a huge ego boost for the politicians who go about overpromising and overhyping the long-term benefits of the Olympics. So if conservatives would rather not take an event that is a net cost (sometimes in the billions of dollars) to the U.S., then perhaps they aren’t rooting against America but are rooting for some sobriety about our international priorities, something that is in short supply.
It was, after all, not the Games that most conservatives groused about but the misuse of the president’s prestige and the symbolism of a misdirected and egocentric sales job. Funny how conservatives are pleading with Obama not to Jimmy Carterize himself — stand up to the Russians, don’t contradict himself on Afghanistan, don’t be upstaged by the French on Iran — while liberals are all too happy to let him advertise his spinelessness for all to see. It is, as Pete points out, a matter of perspective. Liberals obsess over the Games, I suspect, not because they are entranced with the idea of Chicago running up a debt but because they wanted Obama to finally win something. For my money, let him win the war and set out to sell the world on America as a shining city on the hill, not the coolest sports venue.
| »Back to Contentions | »Back to Commentary |
