Not Even the Bronze

That was the Chicago Tribune header as it broke the bad news that everyone in the Windy City must already have digested: Chicago will not host the next summer Olympics. The loss to Rio de Janeiro is easy enough to explain away. Isn't it time South America got to host the event? But it was a bit embarrassing that Chicago got just 18 of 94 first round votes from the International Olympic Committee, and so was eliminated immediately. If this were a baseball team, you'd fire the manager.

Unfortunately for the U.S., Barack Obama decided to step into the role of manager at the last moment, just in time to be humiliated. He flew to Copenhagen with his wife and America's greatest cultural asset, Oprah Winfrey, to try to sway the sages of the IOC. That puts a lot of smelly egg on his face at a time when he needs his face.

I find myself shocked that no one in the Administration talked him out of getting involved in this, even though I know better. It doesn't matter how many wise people the President has around him, he is the central mover of the administration. When he can't make sound decisions, they don't get made.

To be sure, other national leaders whose cities were in contention showed up to make the case. But the US is in the unique position of providing global leadership. No American President has gone to lobby the IOC before. Obama is in the middle of sensitive negotiations with Iran. He is trying to rally the nations to take action on climate change. Here at home, he is trying to get healthcare legislation passed. Maybe going to bat for his old hometown wasn't really something to put at the top of his agenda just now.

But the worst thing about today's debacle is that it feeds the growing perception at home and abroad that Obama is weak. Dana Milbank filed a story before the IOC decision with the title: "A White House That Acts With All Deliberate Deliberation." That was not a complement. The point of the story is that Obama is perceived in the American press as lacking backbone. So it sort of matters when David Jackson at USA Today opens his story on the Olympic disappointment with "He came, he spoke — and he finished last." And it is not just domestically that Obama has an esteem problem. Denis Boyles at National Review catalogs the reason Obama's stature in Europe has been steadily diminished over the last year. The central exhibit in this museum of Carteresque limpness is surely the dressing down that Obama received from French President Sarkozy. You talk about a nuclear free world, Sarkozy chided, but isn't that silly when we can't get our act together on Iran and North Korea? See Charles Krauthammer.

If all this weren't enough, the IOC decision comes on the same day that a very bad jobs report was issued by the labor department. 263,000 jobs were lost in September, driving the unemployment rate to a 26 year high. It would be a good time to hear from the President, but he was in Denmark hearing bad news that he considered more important while Vice President Joe Biden, cheerleader in chief for the President's stimulus package, was left to face the economic numbers.

If the President had had some reason to believe that he would be successful, his Olympic adventure would have made a little sense. A victory, however small, would have at least been a victory. But going without such an assurance looks like an unforced error at a critical point in the game. A lot of us worried about such an untested man taking residence at the White House. Well, now he is being tested.

Comments

[A.I.]

Speaking of failed foreign policy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/iran-agrees-to-send-enric_n_307193.html

And had Obama not gone to Copenhagen, what then? Since other leaders were there, we would have been seen as the arrogant Americans who need not condesend to ask for the games. Meanwhile, at home, the Right Wing noise machine would be saying he didn't even try.

[KB]

A.I.: no other President ever made such a trip. Obama surely didn't have to start now. And surely not at this moment. And since when does Obama have to do something because of what the "right wing noise machine" machine would do. This was a numb skull play on the highest shelf. Even the New York Times agrees.

[caheidelberger]

An alternative thesis: the President made the trip knowing we would lose, and went to demonstrate America can be a good loser:

http://understandinggov.org/2009/10/02/obama-one-move-ahead-on-olympic-loss-for-u-s-chicago/comment-page-1/#comment-860

[George Mason]

How can this be? We were told during the campaign that with is powers of oratory
and persuasion all the people of the world would bow down before Obama, and his wish would be their command. Iran would disarm, Russia would be pacified, the
Palestinians would come to love the Israelis and Al Quaeda would beg forgiveness.
Yesterday he could not push Chicago into 3rd place. Maybe it has something to do with the condition that Obama and the rest of the Chicago political machine have
left their city in (the IOC could not have been impressed with the recent media
coverage out of Chicago). Political climbing and patronage being more important
than crime control, there are too many neighborhoods that have been left to gangs
of feral young people. Cleaning this up should be work for "Community Organizers"
but that would get in the way of promoting a national socialist agenda.

[KB]

Cory: I remember back when Bush 41 mispronounced Saddam Hussein's name. His fans (there were such men!) argued that it was on purpose because the alternative pronunciation was an insult in Arabic. Maybe. I still think he just got it wrong. But when a President's supporters bend over backward to believe virtually any positive interpretation of his actions, he's always a genius!

Even if it had the motive you creatively adopt here, it was still a bone headed play. He had no reason to believe that "American redeemed by grace in the face of defeat" would be the headline. It wasn't. And even if it was, it was hardly worth the cost. I honestly don't know whether the President is a dummy or not. I see precious few signs to the contrary. But this was a dumb thing to do.

[A.I.]

My point was not that Obama need respond to the wishes of the Right Wing noise machine. It was that he would receive criticism whether he made the trip or not and therefore, the criticism (noise machine) is irrelevant.

The whole response, thus far, is classic "...mountain out of a mole hill". A primary reason critics offer for Obama not to go is that the U.S. is somehow above having its leader make a personal pitch for the games--that after leaders of other nations have. It's one more example of American elitism harbored in some political circles.

[KB]

A.I.: I thought that the "Right Wing noise machine" was offered as a reason for Obama's decision. We seem to agree now that it was not. As for the mountain and molehill, I agree in part. There is no basic loss for Obama in terms of power or position. But at a time when his political capital is in worse shape than the employment figures, it was a serious mistake to risk more of it in a situation that he could not control. And it did make a big impression on the press, at home and abroad where it might count the most. Obama can't pretend to be the world leader on the Iran question without acting as the leader of a very special nation, so it was silly to worry about giving the impression of elitism, if that is what he was doing.

[A.I.]

And the point again is that he was going to be criticized whether or not he went. If there was or is a price to pay in terms of political capital, it was going to be paid anyway. Others will make of it what they will. My take is, at least he tried.

Being a "very special nation" does not mean we must be an elitist nation. Part of our being special is possessing military and economic muscle second to none. Other nations understand that, we need not rub their noses in it.

Obama has been presenting a far less arrogant face than Bush in pursuing foreign policy goals. Whether that was a consideration in this instance, I have no way of knowing. My guess is, it's just this Administration's way of approaching the world.

[KB]

A.I.: we have about beat this one into the ground. I admire your stamina in defending the President, but this was clearly a bone-headed move. It risked and lost political capital in a case where little was to be gained. If the President had not intervened, there would have been no story. None. As it is, the story was all over the national and international press, and it was embarrassing. If that is not a bad move, what would be?

I am sure you are right that this was "just this Administration's way of approaching the world". If Bush was arrogant, his arrogance has been replaced by Obama's narcissism. The President's address to the IOC and the First Lady's, were all me, me, me. I am not sure that that's an improvement.