So you've all heard about President Obama traveling to Denmark to lobby the International Olympic Committee on behalf of the totally awesome city of Chicago's bid to host the games in... what? 2016 or something like that? The usual partisans are doing what partisans usually do. The haters of Obama are acting like a bunch of ragging bitches, and the disciples of Obama can't cut the palm branches fast enough.
Personally, the more time he spends in Denmark is less time he spends interrupting scheduled programming with platitudinous speeches, so maybe it's all good in the short term. But I would like to add: chilling with the IOC guys isn't exactly presidential level type stuff. He'd be better off, POTUS-wise, giving another speech to kids, hugging a disaster victim, or throwing out a first pitch.
What is missing from the cacophony is this thought that nobody seems to be thinking:
With the United States already dominant in Olympic Sports, and just plain dominating across the board worldwide, in damn near every category of human and national achievement, do we really need to be challenging an emerging nation (in this case,Brasil) for an even greater share of the three week spotlight?
Isn't collecting the most bling enough for us?
Growing up, my Dad use to tell me that in Italy the saying was that Americans are like manure: everywhere.
He explained it: "Outside, itsa good to have around. Ina house, it stinks."
Typical of southern Italians, our family was decidedly pro-American, and enjoyed the fruits of strong ties to family members who were Americans.
This was not an insult, but a statement of observation.
An observation so simple that Amercans can't seem to grasp it, though we should try.
Understandably, the world is tired of having the US up in their grill all the time. It's not just the militaristic Neocon Bush stuff. It's everything. It's economics. It's pop culture. It's technology. It's science and discovery. It's politics.
It's the standard American swagger that never ends, mostly because, like manure, we are good to have around.
And like manure, too much intimacy breeds contempt.
It's a point worth considering for this administration that promised a less aggressive stance on the world stage.
6 comments:
A friend of mine once observed that the typical citizen of (insert name of basically any country that isn't America here) doesn't dislike the fact that the typical American doesn't know who their Prime Minister is, but rather that the typical American really doesn't need to know that.
I think the Olympics were on balance a good thing for Atlanta. It did spur a lot of positive development in areas of the city that were truly terrifying pre-1990's. And the momentum from that has continued through to today... northern downtown and western midtown (the areas nearest Georgia Tech) are virtually unrecognizable (in a good way) from when I graduated in 1999.
Of course, the fact that the metro area also added about a million people in the 90's probably had something to do with that as well. I have no idea if the same sort of benefits would accrue to Chicago. Or Rio.
Points well taken in general, but I have a hard time getting too offended about this trip --other than the mind-bendingly terrible sense of PR the Obamas seem to be exhibiting regarding it (did Michelle really call her trip to Denmark a "sacrifice?"). A President cheerleading for business within his nation strikes me as a more reasonable role for that office than an around-the-world apology tour.
That said, we've hosted the Olympics a lot, we're not terribly popular on the world stage (and Obama's efforts have done little to reverse the oh-geez-here-come-the-Americans-again attitude, if indeed they haven't made it even worse!), and I don't see his limp cheerleading accomplishing much in this case, unless he's angling for a family vacation to Brazil in a few years.
I don't object to the trip, but I do object to the things he's neglecting while he talks to schoolkids, goes to Denmark, goes on Letterman--but doesn't talk to his generals in Afghanistan or come up with any concrete proposals for his biggest legislative priority.
On the light side, the Burr Oak subdivision has come out 100% in favor of the Olympics in Chicago, according to Mayor Daley.
To be fair, this nation is not securely in place as top dog- we're in a state of decline, and we need these symbolic triumphs in order to keep up the charade any longer- unfortunately our economy happens to be more dependent on that charade than it is on actual productivity. Obama's in the unfortunate, but necessary position of making the most of the charade- selling America to the world as if it were Coca-Cola. I suppose aloofness might be a kind of "hard-to-get" strategy of getting the world to like us, but I'm not sure that's a proven tact of diplomacy, and we certainly didn't choose a president who could make the most of such a strategy- we might as well make the best of him. The America Brand has a new logo- if we don't market the logo with zeal, we're just wasting an opportunity.
Never mind. President Obama's influence on the process has been made loud and clear.
allan: i was going to comment on the risk of him looking ineffective, but i left it off for sake of the larger point.
and its true: he aint looking none to messianic, world stage wise.
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