Let Us Go to Rio!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[John-in-KC]

There's always Richard Milhous Nixon ... of course, my sainted mother called him a crook ever since he stole the election to be Senator from California away from Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950. (That was the first Dirty Trick, btw).

 

He certainly used his political capital to zero. He had to resign the Presidency to avoid certain impeachment in the House, certain conviction in the US Senate and removal from office.(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[Lisabob]

Hold on now, **I** certainly never said Obama was a Kenyan. I have nothing to retract there. What I actually said was that if he had not gone, those birther folks on the lunatic fringe would probably start using his absences as "proof" (and I use the term in the loosest of ways) that he's "obviously" not a "real" American.

 

The point was, the guy gets slammed no matter what he does, or doesn't do, deserved or not.

 

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on his trip to the IOC event. You see it as a wasted trip. I see it as a necessary, though perhaps not earth-shakingly-important, show of face. But he did also meet w/ some NATO folks while there, including McChrystal, in order to discuss Afghanistan. Or was that a waste, too?

[Lisabob]

To clarify, John, I did not intend to imply that *you* were saying Obama is a Kenyan, either. But we both know, I think, that some of those nutter birther people would probably seize upon the matter to try to make their argument.

[John-in-KC]

SFAIK, he went into Copenhagen, did the pitch, got the vote, flew home. He was back in the US in time for the evening news shows last night.

 

The nutters will capitalze on it, but hey, the Left's nutters are actually happy as hell that Chicago lost the bid:

 

This little ditty came from the Huffington Post, iit's called Obama's Olympic Error:

url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/obamas-olympic-error_b_302025.html

"The Obamas, former Chicago residents, should be standing with their city. Instead, we have the sight of Barack, Michelle, and Oprah trying to outmuscle Pele and Brazil for a place at the Olympic trough. The question is why. Maybe Obama wants the Olympic fairy dust enjoyed by Ronald Reagan at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles or Bill Clinton at the 1996 games in Atlanta. Or perhaps he is returning favor to the developers and other sundry connected people in the Windy City who will make out like bandits once the smoke has cleared. But his intentions are clear: he wants the glitz, glamour, and prestige of the games and he wants it for the Daley machine. What the people of Chicago want doesn't seem to compute.

(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[Trevorum]

I'm glad Rio won. It's about time for the southern Americas. Maybe I'll even visit Brazil that year.

[Lisabob]

He met with McChrystal on airforce one while in Denmark.

 

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/10/02/Obama-McChrystal-meet-on-Air-Force-One/UPI-71191254492312/

[scoutldr]

AF1 costs about $67,000 per flight hour (Google search). That does not include the accompanying C17 cargo plane which carries support crew and spare parts, motorcade vehicles and USSS protection.

 

I'm assuming that since the Olympics is a non-governmental function, the USOC will be reimbursing the taxpayers for this cost.

[packsaddle]

******sound of snoring******

Be nice to argue about something important maybe?

[John-in-KC]

Pack,

 

If I didn't think how a President uses his political and diplomatic capital on behalf of the Nation wasn't important, I wouln't comment on it

 

That said, though I be conservative leaning libertarian, and Republican by registration, I also damn GWB and Don Rumsfeld to a special corner of history: People who caused excess deaths of Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen by not looking at an operational/strategic long view, and who didn't build the base of the force to a size where it could handle the missions assigned it.

 

That extra 3 months everyone got to serve in the box in 07-08? That was because we lacked the forces in being to maintain the 12 month on-station policy. Among many other things, that error on Bush/Rumsfelds' part was a cause of people wanting any change at all, and giving us the big O.

 

This to me is the single problem in American leadership today: Each party is by golly self-righteous unto itself, all have forgotten how to cooperate and graduate, and if you ain't a Dem Rep, then you ain't XXXX.

 

Any President has so much political capital on January 20, xxxx. If he spends wisely, his capital grows, and he can chivvy his vision along. If he spends profligately, his capital diminishes, and he loses ability to move his agenda.

 

I've already seen one Huffington blogger demanding the President return to Copenhagen in December for the global climate change treaty talks. She says if he does not, environmentalists should begin the search for a President who will. That's inside his own party. That's simply because he went on the plane to the Olympic selection. There's another blogger on Huffington. He's saying Obama didn't listen to most of Chicago, who didn't want the games.

 

Political capital is neither cheap nor easy to earn.

[packsaddle]

John my friend, I guess I am trying to put this in perspective. In the grand scheme of wasted capital (read, resources in general), this ranks pretty low on my scale. If I grant you every point that you make (and I mostly agree with your sentiment), this particular thing is nothing compared to the ABSENCE of clear, realistic, or effective action with regard to other issues that really DO affect us and the world.

Compared to the pressing problems of today, problems that have been building for decades with little or no effective action, Obama possibly sees, maybe for the first time, that he is confronted with things that are insoluble or else have solutions that will rip the heart out of any political entity that promotes them...because they will be too painful to the electorate.

 

I had a faint hope that Obama might luck into some solutions but I see none. I suspect he sees the same thing. The problems are so huge that there is no mass of political capital that can overcome them. So he tweaks and twiddles as we spiral deeper and deeper. His political opposition just helps move it along more quickly.

 

Forget the 'carbon footprint' of AF1, or the time invested in the Olympics. It is nothing but a small token of what we squandered over the past decades and continue to squander because we are 1) ignorant or 2) indifferent or 3) delusional. Whatever, the reason is irrelevant because these things are going to catch up to us eventually. Worse, they are going to catch up to our children and grandchildren. And consume them in the manner of the beast we have created.

 

The trip to Rio, the Olympics, not much different from a weekend at Camp David or hunting for quail in Texas. Twiddling.

I hope I'm wrong about all this. Obama is a nice guy, an honorable guy. I think he's going to fail. I think that in that failure he'll still look good compared to his predecessor. But I think that there is no way to fix things regardless of who is there. I'm sorry for him and for us but mostly for our children.

[gwd-scouter]

Wow Pack, that is certainly an unusually depressing post from you. I'm afraid that I, too, find my optimism waning a bit. Not so much because of the President himself or the things he's trying to do, but because of the ignorant and hateful rhetoric being displayed by media commentary, politicians, and the American population (both left and right folks, but I've found it particularly alarming to hear some of the vitriol from the right). Whether because people hate him because of who he is or because of what he stands for, I'm sorry that the election of President Obama has driven an even larger wedge into the divide in this country.

[packsaddle]

Gwd, I'm still up for a BBQ lunch sometime, BTW. The wedge you describe is not of Obama's making. I could have said the same for Bush II at the beginning of his administration (see my post from 2003), but he blew that later.

The wedge is there because we, the people, put it there and we are divided because we choose to be divided. The guy at the top can be the smartest and most resourceful guy there is, but none of that will count unless we want to unite.

[CalicoPenn]

When we get our news from internet blogs, and when our news media gets their news from internet blogs, and we consider that news to be substantive, we're destined to fail.

 

A blogger on Huff Post says that most Chicagoans were against the Olympics - and now that's fact? Nope - the facts are the Chicagoans were pretty evenly split with 47% opposed with 49% supportive - accounting for the margin of error, that's pretty darn close to a statistical tie. But if we ignore the margin of error, 49% still beats out 47% so a correct statement would be "Most Chicagoans supported the Olympics", and the statement that most Chicagoans opposed the Olympics would be a lie.

 

Our media is now driven by opinion rather than fact. If the facts don't support the opinion, it doesn't matter. All that matters is who can shout their opinion the loudest, because as we know, he who shouts the loudest must be right.

 

Will Obama "fail"? Maybe - but if he does, so will the next President, and the one after that, and the one after that, until we break this cycle of the politics of the personal that began during the Clinton administration, continued under Bush, and it readily apparent under Obama.

[gwd-scouter]

Pack, BBQ sounds great. I'll email you. No, Obama didn't create the divide, but I think his presence has made it worse. Just my opinion, of course.

 

Yeah, I just love the statistical spin that goes on during the commentary shows. Hate to say it, but I question the intelligence of some of my coworkers and other acquaintances who propagate that commentary and gleefully admit that they don't bother to listen to the other side of the argument, because, as everyone knows, the other side is lying.

 

 

[scoutldr]

There are eight more American families who had their lives shattered this morning.