It's Tea Time

So Barack and Michelle head out to Copenhagen to spread the word on Chicago, the city of opportunity in the land of opportunity. They're pumped up man, they're ready to go. This is going to be a street fight and they're bringing home the goods.

Or not.

We came in dead last of all the locations up for a vote. That's right, dead last. What a joke.

For those of you who may try to spin this in such a way that vilifies George Bush, blaming the "animosity" the world has for America for this blow out decision: you might want to think twice.

If you think back to the bid for the 2012 Olympics, which were eventually held in London, you'll come to a realization. There was another real contender in the bids, and it was New York City:

London Great Britain 22 27 39 54
Paris France 21 25 33 50
Madrid Spain 20 32 31 —
New York City US 19 16 — —
Moscow Russia 15 — — —

Now, NYC was defeated in round two of the voting but there's a deeper story. Michael Bloomberg, mayor of NYC, had planned to build a new stadium complex in concert with the NY Jets. The Jets were to contribute a sizable amount, but another $600 million would be required in public funds.

Bloomberg made the argument then, and I happened to agree with him, that the new complex would make coming to NYC much more attractive to those orchestrating events such as the Olympics. This in turn would lead to a new stream of revenue moving forward from the completion date of the project which would pay back the investment and then some. New jobs, new opportunities, you get the idea. The IOC (International Olympic Committee) wanted assurances this deal would go through, and it's likely if it had gone through the outcome of the voting would have been quite different.

Now the point to all this is that Obama went over there with nothing to sell. There was no shiny new stadium, no clean streets, no top of the line police force with boat loads of experience handling large crowds. All he had was himself, his wife, Oprah, and his pretty speeches. Chicago is and always has been a mess. The worst thing that could have happened for our country is if the IOC had temporarily lost their sanity and actually given us the Olympics.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief however, because the Olympics are in Rio (pronounced hee-oh, thank you Brazilian girlfriend). Could you really ask for a more beautiful place? Throw in the fact that Rio has to deal with Carnival each year and you've got a recipe for one of the greatest Olympics in the past century. And that's saying something, because China's Olympic debut was spectacular.