Chicago’s dismal showing today, after Mr Obama’s personal, impassioned last-minute pitch, is a stunning humiliation for this President. It cannot be emphasised enough how this will feed the perception that on the world stage he looks good — but carries no heft.
It was only the Olympic Games, the White House will argue — not a high-stakes diplomatic gamble with North Korea. It is always worthwhile when Mr Obama sells America to the rest of the world, David Axelrod, his chief political adviser, said today. But that argument will fall on deaf ears in the US. Americans want their presidents to be winners.
Mr Obama was greeted — as usual — like a rock star by the IOC delegates in Copenhagen — then humiliated by them. Perception is reality. A narrow defeat for Chicago would have been acceptable — but the sheer scale of the defeat was a bombshell, and is a major blow for Mr Obama at a time when questions are being asked about his style of governance.
Obama’s Olympic failure will only add to doubts about his presidency – (UK) Times Online. The article comes with a terrific picture, too:
I’m not sure what accounts for the peculiar, disjunctive “two-faced” effect – doesn’t look like a static b.g. image. Viewing angle? Video delay? Both/neither?
Comments 26
Yup, the Olympic Games going to Rio is the story I would expect you pishers to feature.
Yup, yup, yup.
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Way things are going here web operations-wise, you’re lucky we can post anything.
Some days, the CotD cuts against the grain. Some days, like today, it sums up the massed rumblings. It was clearly the news of the day – if you didn’t want it to be the news of the day, you should have warned the TGL not to invest his remnant credibility in an (obviously) at best uncertain relatively high profile international effort.
So it’s your fault, cluck. If you have a suggestion for an alternate CotD, lemme know, and maybe we can put it up as well!
Otherwise, pish off! Pish, pish, pish.
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
@CK MacLeod – If you want to go with a story about how Obama’s diplomatic efforts are going, I thought that there was some other news….
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE59129F20091002
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I can’t bring myself to be surprised by the IOC’s decision; but you have to wonder at what sort of political advice President Obama is getting. Surely someone should have taken a straw poll or tested the waters before he put himself out there on the limb.
Unless he’s not listening to advice. . .
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Or maybe Steve Schmidt
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/10/hed_been_trying_to_write.php
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:14 pm
That’s not news yet, fuster. It’s a possible agreement in principle with a country that doesn’t have a history of keeping its agreements – and has been developing the capacity to replace the agreed-upon amount in a matter of months, even assuming the deal goes forward exactly as described. Meanwhile, discussions about discussions will continue.
We’ll see. Anyway, this was a Contention of the Day, not a news analysis of yesterday.
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
@fuster – seems a bit early to devote too much attention to the childish pronouncements of people like Schmidt on the theoretical presidential aspirations of non-candidates.
In 1979, the Republican establishment was giddy with excitement over the prospects of their candidate: John Connally the perfect embodiment of “crossover” appeal. When the R contests finally starting going, he hardly even registered.
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:36 pm
@CK MacLeod – That seemed like a pretty contentious contention for you and not so much for the Queen of Disaster part as much as for the “conservative-radio complex” idea that the buffoonish rant style geared to the LCD is a killer for the GOP.
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
@fuster – eh – don’t find it very interesting or novel, fuster, except for the “conservative-entertainment complex” coinage. Mainly, I just find self-styled representatives of the “reasonable” center who continually resort to overstatement, alarmism, and personal and demeaning attacks on conservatives to be tedious. They claim that they’re hated because they’re not extreme enough for the yahoos. The reason that they’re despised is that they’re crass and small-minded, self-serving hypocrites, and laughably obvious about it, too.
October 2nd, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Doesn’t that go with the territory of the TGL presidency?
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 pm
@fuster — Pishers?
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:49 pm
@Howard Portnoy – ask Barbara, she’ll sit you down and ‘splain.
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Howard,
I looked it up.
pisher – noun. a young, inexperienced, presumptuous person. . .
fuster was moved to respond about a post concerning the way his man in the White House flushed more of his credibility down the pishadoo, and for some reason the word “pisher” was hopping around in his head.
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:57 pm
@Sully – see #12, I was thinking of something funny that Barbara wrote last week.
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:59 pm
My comment went to your state of mind, not your specific reference.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:05 pm
@Sully – Well, if you want to explain what i was thinking or feeling, who am I to disagree?
(I’d say, “what could I be thinking” to suggest something else but you would probably answer.)
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Poorly put on my part – I wasn’t commenting on “what” or “how” you were thinking and feeling, but rather on “why” you were moved to think and feel along those lines.
October 3rd, 2009 at 12:52 am
@Sully – I wasn’t taking it too seriously, Sully.
I thought your comment was pretty clever, esp. the hophead part.
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 am
Do you ever sleep?
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:30 am
@Sully –
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:50 am
@Sully -Sometimes I’ll rest my eyes while at my desk at the Daily Planet.
October 3rd, 2009 at 1:58 am
@fuster – So you’re able to leap tall buildings in a single hop?
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:34 am
even after a double malt.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:21 am
Anyway, I was not looking forward to the disruption of daily life that the Olympics would have brought to Chicago. The only reason I may have been leaning toward wanting to have them here is that people on the far left in Chicago were against it. They believe that it would have taken resources away from the poor and the disadvantaged. The potential stimulation of the local economy by the Olympics doesn’t enter into their calculations; they dismiss the idea as capitalist propaganda.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:54 am
@Sully — Sully, thanks, but actually I am familiar with the term, which is usually preceded by “little.” I was surprised that fuster was referring to us Zombies as pishers.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:57 am
Obama fits the first half of the definition pretty well. One of the reasons he was able to blindside Hillary. She couldn’t imagine such a pipsqueak as a threat.
Sort of like Mark Antony and Cicero faced with a 19 year old pisher and both figuring to use him.
October 3rd, 2009 at 12:23 pm