Republicans vs. US Olympics

President Obama visited Denmark this week to meet with the International Olympic Committee in an attempt to persuade them to choose Chicago as the site of the 2016 Olympics. Republican punditry was on the case quickly with reasons to...not have the Olympics here?

At first, I found Republican opposition to Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid sincerely baffling, but it clearly stems from the summer's Tea Party movement that grew from an ostensible rejection of high deficit spending and the prospect of higher taxes. The movement, seemingly engineered by Glenn Beck and stoked by FOX News, manifested in the deep-seated Republican distrust of the Obama administration and grew to a debatable size, but one that was fairly large nonetheless. Tea partiers ended the protest season with a finale on the mall in DC. Widespread public support evaded the movement largely because its body of supporters were less small-government advocates as they were anti-Obama advocates.

Squaring the circle: negative Republican sentiment towards the Olympics was less a reflection of fiscal concerns and more an expression of difference against Obama. Republican pundits insisted that a Chicago Olympics would greatly inflate an infirm city/state budget, was unwanted by the citizens, and would serve to benefit Chicago's infamous corruption racket. While these are perfectly reasonable arguments, it is entirely unreasonable to accept the pundits' integrity. Beck, Hannity, et al, were evidently not opposed to the Olympics in the United States, but were opposed to Obama's cachet, Obama's hometown, and Obama's Chicago colleagues. Drudge, for instance, linked to a poll indicating a near-50/50 split in opinion among Chicagoans the day before the IOC's decision. The day the IOC announced Chicago did not win, Drudge's super-headline read "THE EGO HAS LANDED." Clever, no doubt. Then on Hannity they had Michelle Malkin on talking about Obama bringing cabinet-member and fellow Chicagoan Valerie Jarrett to Denmark to stump for the Olympics. The material on Jarrett was whether or not she's possibly potentially maybe a slum-lord.

I'm convinced the antagonism of Chicago's bid was manufactured to again resist Obama at every step. For a party that virtually claims the copyright to patriotism, they've done a knock-up job kneecapping American triumphalism.