Turn out the lights...
the party's over...
They say that all...
good things must end....
turn out the lights.......
WOW!!!! A first round knockout. Didn't see that one coming.
This is not referendum on President Obama. If anyone LOST the bid, I would gladly blame Mayor Daley. But even with his sub-Bush approval rating, he keeps getting re-elected. You get the government you ask for I suppose.
The late slump in local support (from 61% to 47%) has been widely attributed to Daley putting the taxpayers on the hook for any cost-overruns (in Chicago???). This was a no-win situation as well however, since if you do not put that safety net in place, the IOC doesn't bless the bid.
So the lesson learned when you deal with these scoundrels is that it always seems to be a no-win, damned if you do-damned if you don't scenario and that is where most of the local ambivalence comes from.
It will be interesting to hear the post-mortem blame game. The far-right and the far-left seemed to team up to rip Obama for supporting the "home" team. Lets' hear what each says now. It will also be interesting to hear the bleating coming from the Mayor's office. Can they possibly blame IOC corruption and insider dealing? With a straight face?
Maybe now the city of Chicago can dial back the hourly rate on their parking meters to somewhere south of the hourly minimum wage.
There's really no perceived upside to having this event anymore, except for a Rio that wants to CHANGE their image around the world. Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid seemingly do not need that as much as perhaps a Rio does.
I wish them luck. I hope for a lot of reasons that it is one of the most poorly watched and sponsored Summer Games in history. I was hoping for that result from the Games held in China, but no such luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment