When the Olympic host-city vote was announced on Friday, there was dancing, cheering, celebrating, and joy all around. Hugging. Tears. Oh, not for the winning city, mind you -- this was by jubilant conservatives over America losing.
Let's say that again, and be very clear about it: conservatives were cheering because America lost.
It was bizarre. It was, however, not unexpected.
This is a group of warm-hearted souls who have publicly hoped that the president fails; voted unanimously against health care; fought for decades against Medicare for the elderly; against Social Security for the poor, against welfare for the needy. Conservatives have fought against the 40-hour work week, child welfare laws, and minimum wage.
So, honestly, it really was not a shock to see the far right's joy at America failing. "We Got Ours, You're on Your Own, Bucko" tends to be their proud mantra.
Yes, yes, I know they'll insist they weren't against America, this time, but really just celebrating the failure of the president of the United States (and how cool is that?!) -- but make no mistake, they were dancing over a loss for America. A loss of tens of thousands of jobs -- during a recession; a loss of several billion dollars of revenue -- during a recession. Jobs and revenue that would have started immediately.
(Not to worry, they will start. Just in Brazil, though. Not the United States.)
And conservatives danced.
Okay, in fairness, some conservatives had legitimate reasons for being against America hosting the Olympics. "I'm actually for Rio," moralist Bill Bennett acknowledged beforehand. "[I]n Chicago, it's fat people eating."
But beyond the creepy celebrating and disdain, it was the brazen ignorance of the cheering conservatives that was more pronounced. Mean-spirited is one thing. Ignorance perpetuates itself.
There was Glenn Beck before the announcement, in tears that the president of the United States would try to help the U.S. Olympic Committee when asked. Bemoaning repeatedly that Vancouver lost a billion dollars when it held the Olympics.
One problem: Vancouver won't actually be holding the Olympics until this winter. Most likely he meant Montreal. (Such gaffes happen to graduates of the University of I Don't Remember.) But even if he'd gotten it right, his ignorance was glaring. You see, Montreal lost its billion in 1976. Thirty-three years ago. Okay, I know conservatives like to live in the past, but this is obsessive. This is stalking the past. There have been 16 Olympic Games since then.
Worse though, in terms of ignorance, is that in the very next Summer Olympics the U.S. participated in after Montreal, Los Angeles changed the dynamic of how the Games would be run -- and made a profit of $250 million! (All of which went to America. Not Brazil.) And when the smaller Winter Games were held in Salt Lake City, they made a profit of $50 million. (Which went to America. Not -- you know.) Even the last Summer Games in the U.S. hosted by Atlanta, though widely-acknowledged as not being well-run ... they still made a profit of $5 million. Which went to -- never mind.
It gets worse. Conservatives liked ridiculing President Obama for being the first leader to ever pitch the International Olympic Committee and be rebuffed. Except, you see, the truth is that this happened two other times. Mind you, I don't mean happened "ever." I mean just last week alone!
Every country bidding on Friday had their nation's leader present. King Juan Carlos of Spain was there -- they lost. The new Prime Minister of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama, was there -- in fact, so was its Crown Prince Naruhito. They lost, too. A twofer.
Not knowing it, not bothering to find out, not caring at all just points out the obvious what pretty much every American grasps. That conservatives have such a blind, ignorant, hot hatred for President Barack Obama and for anything that isn't them, that they'll sell America down Grover Norquist's bathtub drain just to have their way.
It's pathetic, selfish and greedy. And, alas, par for the course.
This isn't about not knowing about the Olympics. It's about not caring about the facts. It's about an ongoing pattern with the far right. Obama wants to kill old people. Obama is from Kenya. Obama is a Muslim. Obama is a terrorist. A socialist. Facts don't matter. The smear does.
And conservatives danced.
Of course, the reality is that if President Obama didn't go to Denmark, the U.S. wouldn't have gotten the bid either -- and who here thinks that the far right wouldn't have blasted him for not caring about America? Conservatives would have slammed Obama whether he went or stayed. It's just their bad luck that he tried to bring jobs to America, and they had to end up criticizing that. Not that they seemed to mind. It's only the dance that counts.
The reality is that the IOC's selection process has been going on for several years. This wasn't like a last-minute surprise. Of course, if conservatives really want to point a finger at a president for not getting the Olympic bid, a better argument could be made that the rest of the world is still pissed at George Bush. Honestly, that didn't likely come into play much -- but I would lay cash money that it came into play far more than Barack Obama flying in for a day to make a speech.
In the end, though, the problem for conservatives here is short-sighted stupidity. Not getting an Olympic bid is an utter non-issue. But what voters will remember is that, once again, conservatives were working against the best interests of America.
You see, 84% of Americans supported getting the Olympics.
And when it failed -- conservatives danced.
Updated.
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So, what's the real 2010 Republican campaign message gonna be?: "Watch out Democrats, we're gonna be nastier, dirtier, more unethical and deceptive than ever.
Amitai Etzioni: Too Many Lawsuits? My Foot
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He didn't wreck the economy. He didn't start an unnecessary war in Iraq while neglecting to bring those that attacked us on 9/11 to justice. I understand the disdain for Bush, but what did Obama do to warrant such hatred? He seems like a decent guy who is putting forth his best effort for America. He has tried to engage them. I just don't get it.
Tearing down Obama is the only path back to power that most conservatives can see. The reason for that is that between 2000 and 2006, the GOP had power and completely failed to deliver on the GOP promise of a small, thrifty, Constitutionally limited government. They realize that we can't run on fiscal responsibility, not after we went on a deficit-fueled spending spree. We can't run on respecting the Constitution, since we didn't protect the Fourth Amendment.
At this point, it's almost impossible to sell conservative principles on their merit, so the only option for some people is to lash out in anger.
These people are tribal. Their world view can be simply broken down into "one of us" or "not one of us".
And speaking as a Vancouver taxpayer, I can tell that in this (if nothing else), Beck's claimed billion dollar loss might be premature, but he's unlikely to be wrong. Host cities get screwed; that's one of the eternal verities of the Olympic racket.
I'm positive that the great city of Chicago will be able to find better ways to spend several billion dollars than on a two week party for sports marketers and freeloaders.
I'm a conservative, and I'm willing to go head-to-head with the left on almost any issue of disagreement. In this case, however, it's hard to find anything defensible in the AFP's behavior. Their glee over Chicago's loss is partisan hatred run amok, no matter how you spin it.
All I can say is there are some of us conservatives who don't see the world that way. We're not all mouth-foaming, science-denying, Obama haters. We don't all abandon our principles just because the other party won an election. We don't all put party loyalty ahead of loyalty to the nation.
Some of us are trying to buck the trend, from big names like Joe Scarborough to nobodies like me. America needs a rational conservative voice, not the torches and pitchforks approach that's come to characterize the movement. Maybe the AFP tape will be the turning point, because that was a despicable display of unpatriotic behavior.
I hate to gripe about my fellow conservatives, but I'm a soldier in the War on Stupidity, and I take no prisoners.
The biggest problem is that the irrational, anti-science mindset of the creationists has infected the conservative/GOP axis. That mindset see politics as a sort of holy war against the randy Bohemian hordes of the left. It's good vs. evil with trumpets blaring and the Ayatollah Rush Limbaugh cheerleading.
I used to sneer at people who referred to the right wing as the American Taliban. These days, I'm really starting to wonder...
The stakes for getting the Olympics has gone up. Los Angeles made money, Barcelona made money, as did Atlanta and Salt Lake City. That being said, leaders of nations are under pressure to make a full faith effort to help get the games. London got the 2012 games, partially due to Tony Blair's appearance in Copenhagen. Obama simply put forth an effort that he deemed necessary because all the leaders of the other contenders went to Denmark.
My definition of an American conservative is someone who believes you are entitled to what you want as long as you pay for it yourself.
Remember Eric Cantor's reply at his sole town hall meeting to the woman whose friend had cancer and no insurance? Basically, it was "sell all you own, then qualify for Medicaid and charity."
Silly neocons, with their outmoded ideas on private property and stuff.
Who pays?
Siily liberal notion that we just don't let people who are in tough situations die in the streets.
Liberals are afraid you won't get something good which you do deserve or that you will get something bad that you don't deserve.
Conservatives are afraid that you'll get something good that you don't deserve, or that you won't get something bad that you do deserve.
Then, we could stop talking in the abstract.
It was never governments role to provide social services to begin with-the entire idea of safety nets came about late in the 19th c. and culminated in the New Deal. Even FDR saw welfare as a "narcotic".
Here's old school democrat, Grover Cleveland, laying it out for you:
http://mises.org/story/3627
bingo.
I mean no disrespect to Mr Elisberg, but it does seem that he has wasted much energy berating US conservatives for their response to Chicago's defeat, whilst entirely missing the bigger picture:
Rio won, because it deserved to win. And we can be grateful that the IOC in this instance, did the absolutely correct thing.
In between Montreal and Los Angeles was a glaring omission. Moscow's Olympics suffered mightily when they took the decision to invade Afghanistan in 1979. 62 countries, led by the United States, boycotted the 1980 Games there, while a handful of others did not participate in the opening ceremonies.
The United States, conversely, has yet to experience anything in the way of international sanctions over its ongoing illegal and unjustified invasion of Iraq (displacing 5.4 million people and directly or indirectly causing the deaths of a million more); not to mention its continued use of torture, which alone should automatically disqualify the United States from hosting any such international event.
Chicago's campaign for the Olympics was unseemly. Given our deserved disgrace in world opinion right now, we would do well to focus on cleaning up the mess we've made rather than trying to capitalize on international events celebrating values we have so notoriously degraded.
From where I sit, Obama's participation in the Chigaco campaign was a remarkably insensitive, callow and craven act of rehabilitating the image of the United States without first addressing our grievous international misconduct.
Many Americans were shocked that Chicago was disqualified on the first ballot. Having lived abroad for the last five years, believe me when I tell you, they were the only ones.
I'm a fan of yours and read everything you write, but can you seriously tell me that you can't see the international gall of the United States suggesting itself as an appropriate venue for the Olympics when it can't even muster the courage to prosecute its propagators of ongoing torture?
Spain, who had citizens unlawfully seized and tortured under the Bush program, has found the wherewithal to wage a legal battle against the Bush administration, however "the greatest country in the history of civilization" who lectures the world on civil liberties and liberty in general can't seem to be bothered.
We've all put so much stock into the election of Obama and the promise of turning a new progressive page in our history that we've forgotten how fresh all of the damage we've inflicted, and continue to inflict, is. We've also completely let Obama off the hook as he mimics Bush in every practical sense, albeit with soaring rhetoric.
And furthermore, given the fact that we've plunged the world economy into recession, I hardly think we deserve to be "rewarded" with the possibility of capitalizing on an international event like the Olympics.
I'm stunned that I'm the only one who is pointing this out. It seems glaringly obvious.
I appreciate the President making the effort given our economy - but our so called title as "the number one country in the world" - was made hollow by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and the Republicans of the past 12 years.
We're not "automatic" and have lost the moral and democratic high-ground. The work to rehabilitate is now.
I'm not so unrealistic as to expect full blown solutions this early in his tenure. However the degree to which Obama has maintained the status quo at a time of true crisis is astounding.
The house is on fire and he seems content to try to extinguish it with equal parts water and gasoline.
I understand the sentiment of many regarding the bid for Chicago, but given our present circumstances, it seemed to like so much more distraction than an honor we truly deserved.
How Un-American can you be? How can conservatives of the gop spin this in a way that doesn't expose them for their hypocrisy?
I dont see it. I do not see them being able to play this any other way than what it was...pure hatefilled animosity toward, first the President and secondly the state of Illinois, Chicago and the surrounding states who would have benefitted from run off from Chicago.
Another foot closer to to the bottom, another day closer to the end of the gop!
The name of the group is "Americans for Properity"....what a joke. It was reported that $13 BILLION would have been pumped into the economy, certainly not chump change...and that thousands of jobs would have been created. One of these ditzy people made the statement, "We need jobs now!" When exactly did she think that those jobs were going to start...2015? No reasonable person, if they were truly concerned for our economic woes, would have protested hosting the Olympics.
This is really not about the Olympics...or health care reform...or the Clean Air Act...or education...or any other issue that we face! This is about what Mr. Elisberg has referred to as a "white hot hatred" of President Obama....they cannot stand that we have a black man leading this country! How sad!