Going For The Gold!
Some truly Olympian performances in the reactions to President Barack Obama’s unsuccessful expenditure of political capital in Copenhagen. And the gold goes to …
… Andrew Sullivan! It was a distraction and a waste of time. How dare anyone say so?*
Silver to Publius at BigGovernment, “Chicago drops from Second to Fourth City … Not only no, but Hell No.” With iconic art of one of those painful Olympic dream-dashing moments. Clever jibes make it a photo finish, but it’s hard for anyone to beat Sullivan’s astonishing gymnastics.
John McCormack at the Weekly Standard: “Obama’s Cowboy Diplomacy lost.” Big points for irony. Serious athletic display takes issue with the idea that opposing an American Olympics … or any other Obama agenda item … is unpatriotic. But an otherwise strong performance fails to note that this is just the latest example of an Obama agenda item that it is treasonous to oppose, or even mock. Points for linkage to the betrayal of Eastern Europe. Dogged effort could have been improved by noting any number of other foreign policy gaffes, failures and betrayals on the part of the young administration. McCormack gets the Bronze.
Gamely limping across the finish line after the crowd’s gone home, but still looking around for cheers, it’s Joe Scarborough at Huffington Post: ”Thank you, Mr. President.” Failure to support the president’s skewed priorities is an example of the frightful lack of civility plaguing our society. It is incumbent on Republicans, having endured eight years of vile jokes and defamatory accusations, followed on by demands for persecution in vital national security matters, to support frivolous things they don’t agree with or care about. OK, that’s not exactly how he put it.
Well, Joe, I just want to say that as a patriotic American, I completely support the president’s decision to demonstrate how skewed his priorities are, and I hope the latest evidence that the world is not blindly enamored of him has been a learning experience. I also hope that the president is beginning to realize that that political failure is a snowball. It gets bigger as it rolls downhill. Next lumps, health care and climate change. Big moguls ahead, Iran and Afghanistan. Kind of a Winter Olympics downhill event that ends with a spectacular wipeout.
Notable also-rans, in a field of strong performances:
Malkin, “Noble sacrifice.”
HotAir, “Comedy Gold” and “White House Clueless.”
Riehl: Obama, media victim. The higher they vault him up, the bigger the drop.
Surber: The Won’s brief bedazzlement wasn’t enough. He failed to kowtow. Meanwhile, the First Lady failed to realize it wasn’t all about her.
Gateway: In case you missed it, Obama bashed America again in IOC pitch.
… hang on a sec. I thought opposing O’s OOOO bid was unAmerican. This is getting confusing.
Tim Reid, Times of London:
… loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing with his grandiloquence.
Chicago’s dismal showing yesterday, 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.
Jay Cost, RealClearPolitics on the Obama marathon: “This is the permanent campaign.”
Meanwhile, Balloon-Juice, indignantly, “What prestige did he lose?” John Cole goes on to explain that Obama’s still president of the United States after Copenhagen (which is a helpful reminder, seeing as he hasn’t been acting like it since January). It’s an interesting theory from a guy who thinks George Bush lost all prestige by invading Iraq. At last check, he was still president and getting an opposition-led Congress to do his bidding in Iraq seven years later.
Anyway, it seems to be all anyone wants to talk about. Memeorandum. Which suggests that tossing around your political capital wantonly may be a bigger deal than some people would like to admit.
Side note: Looking forward to finding out what was in the IOC gift bags, on the assumption that another Olympic bribery scandal can’t be far behind the award ceremony. I’m guessing the Brazilian socialists had the good sense to toss sequined thongs in theirs. Plus private security service vouchers. That Olympic village is going to need to be an armed camp. The big question is whether those Olympic-themed thongs were occupied or not. You’d think the Windy City’s pluggers would have had the good sense to put something traditional in their gift bags that really says “Chicago.” Like cash. And pork. Maybe a nightstick and some brass knuckles just to remind the IOC members to seriously consider their interests. But if they had, they might have won.
* Worth clicking through the Sullivan link just to see Sullivan’s talking head, video cycling through in the Porsche ad space at top and top right, “Andrew Sullivan Answers Your Questions.” You may have a refresh a couple of times to see it. I have a question for you, Andrew. Does the fact that you’ve been stressing your conservative principles and positions lately mean you’re getting ready to turn on Obama? I just checked my stopwatch, we’re coming up on time.
Separate issue, that “Publius” at Breitbart’s BigGovernment I just award the Silver to, that can’t be the same sanctimonious Obsidian Wings wienie who whined about being outed after he engaged in an anonymous attack on Ed Whelan at NRO, can it? Unless he’s suddenly experienced a Sullivan-like ideological transformation, doesn’t look like it.
(Care to comment? Registration is shut down, due to persistent spammers. Use the “contact” link to assure me you are a real human being interested in commenting on the topics at hand, include the screenname and temporary password of your choice, and I’ll create a logon for you. Lefty Kumbayah singers, moderate handwringers, mean-spirited rightwingers all welcome. No litmus test, this is a free speech zone as long as you keep it clean and make an effort to be accurate.)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:30 am on Saturday, October 3, 2009
6 Responses to “Going For The Gold!”
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October 3rd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
[...] Mmm… Rush Limbaugh Slams Obama For Failing to Grab the Gold for Chicago Jules Crittenden: Going For The Gold! President Obama, Chicago Olympics & Corruption: The Top 10 Reasons Why Chicago Should Not Host [...]
October 3rd, 2009 at 5:43 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden has more. var addthis_pub = ”; var addthis_language = ‘en’;var addthis_options = ‘email, favorites, digg, delicious, myspace, google, facebook, reddit, live, more’; [...]
October 3rd, 2009 at 6:08 pm
The best line to come out of all this was from Ron Flatter
I don’t know anything about Yukio but “metrosexual façades” does the trick for Obama and Zapatero, the Mr Bean of European politics.
Just because you said so, I did look at the Sullivan video for a minute or so, once I could get past the Porche ads. I was disgusted to begin with, true. But I couldn’t get past the idea that his conservatism believes in “balanced government” therefore the left has to get in once in a while. Or whatever. Then, when he arched his eyebrows and said with compassionate irony (or something) that it was time for the “Democrats to own national security policy” I closed it for good. I should have known.
October 4th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Sorry, Roque, my bad. I meant just “look at” not “click in.” But thank you for doing the dirty work on that. Those are some instant Sullivanian classics.
October 5th, 2009 at 11:31 am
[...] yet, whiny, dishonest turds like Jules Crittanden, The Weekly Standard, Big Government (the blog, not the myth) and Ed Driscoll are gloating about [...]
October 5th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
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