Well, that'll teach our sports-minded president to get involved with a political mob like the International Olympic Committee.
And he thought Chicago politics were rough and tumble...
Whether President Obama should have involved himself so directly to bring the Olympic Games to Chicago in 2016, given the other pressing things he has on his plate these days, is fair game for the political pundits -- but this thing was never going to end well.
It seems to me that he, and the dynamic duo of wife, Michelle, and Talk Show Goddess, Oprah, had everything to lose and nothing to win when they made the long trip to Copenhagen to genuflect in front of an institution that has shown itself over the years to run a cottage industry specializing in corruption, warped judgment, and greed.
In the past 70 years, give or take, or since a German leader named Adolph Hitler bribed Pierre de Coubertin, the French founder of the modern Olympic Movement, to secure the 1936 Games in Berlin, the Olympics have too often seen the athletic competition relegated to some sort of distracting sideline event.
Oh, they generally put on a grand show -- and in 1936, thank God the classy Jesse Owens stole that particular show -- but like so many corporate monstrosities, the IOC clutches hard to power and treasure, and we're not talking about gold, silver and bronze here.
The Olympics have managed to become a rickety stage for all manner of abhorrent behavior ranging from the downright tawdry -- 1994, Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan; to the downright crooked -- 1972, U.S. basketball team gets robbed; to the downright gruesome -- 1972, the Munich Massacre, in which 11 members of the Israeli wrestling team were killed by terrorists.
Throw in the boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 Games, any number of doping controversies, the 1996 bombing in Atlanta, the boxing fix of 1988, the pairs figure skating snafu in 2002, Ben Johnson in 1988, and last summer's censorship of the media by the Chinese authorities, and the Olympics can manage to make your average TV reality program look classy.
But, man can they make money.
NBC alone paid $894 million for the rights to broadcast the 2008 Beijing Games. Imagine what the price will be in 2016?! Then throw in the billions they rake in from the other countries that send their athletes off with the Olympic spirit...
When the IOC saw the leader of the most powerful nation in the world come to Copenhagen, hat in hand, this week, this was about a lot more than money. Money they have.
No, in this case, the bastards knew they had us right where they wanted us -- on our knees.
It wouldn't be the first time, but where the United States is concerned, let's hope it's the last.
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