On Friday, we reported the odd happiness with which many conservatives greeted Chicago’s — and America’s — defeat in trying to land the 2016 Olympics. Well, it’s still going.
On Fox News Sunday this morning, the gang had a nice little laugh about America’s failure to win the 2016 games. Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol suggested that not only did President Obama try to “bully” the IOC, but that he should have been lobbying for Brazil — which will host the 2016 Games in Rio De Janeiro — instead of the United States.
There’s so many ironies in this. By Barack Obama’s view of the world, he should have been rooting for Brazil to get the Olympics. South America’s never gotten them. Brazil’s never gotten them. It’s a rising power. It would help Brazil. We don’t need the Olympics. We’ve had them a million times. Our economy doesn’t need the boost of the Olympics.
Right. Because the U.S. economy is just going gangbusters right now.
Kristol went on to say that Obama’s appearance in Copenhagen on Friday to try to convince the IOC to award the games to America was reminiscent of Obama’s predecessor.
“An American president, in a sort of George W. Bush-like way, goes and tries to bully the International Olympics Committee.”
He continued, “can you imagine if some Republican, if Bush had done this and we hadn’t gotten it?” Kristol suggested that the left would treat it as “typical Bush heavy-handedness, cowboy, unilateralist, hegemonic, imperialist action.”
The Fox News gang cracked up at that one.
“You couldn’t help but be amused by it,” Kristol said of America’s 2016 Olympics defeat.
NPR’s Mara Liasson said that while the loss of the Olympics was a disappointment to Obama, “this is kind of low on the list of crucial defeats for the President.”
“This was the Olympics, after all,” she said. “It wasn’t a war.”
Moments later, Juan Williams adopted the language of a familiar war to declare that the situation Obama faced Friday in Copenhagen was “a quagmire.”
Brit Hume said the White House seems to have the idea that “if we can just deploy Barack Obama, that his wonderfulness will turn the tide, will change the atmosphere, will win over people.”
“That seems to be a fundamental tenet of the foreign policy of this administration,” Hume said.
And Chicago’s loss in the first round of IOC voting on Friday? “Not only did the wonderfulness not work, but all of this engagement and charming he’s been doing with foreign leaders hasn’t worked very well,” Hume said.
We’ll have video for you later this afternoon.
Late Update: Here’s the video.
