Voting is a very personal thing. In the end, no matter what you say to anyone, you may cast a vote on behalf of someone or something for any reason you choose, regardless of what you declare publicly. Maybe you said that you voted for McCain-Palin because of high-minded, ideological reasons…when you really voted for them because you think Miss Sarah is so darn pretty; maybe you said that you voted for Obama out of deference to the same sort of ideological motivation…but really cast that vote simply because he’s black. The point is that you can say what you want, but no one else, ultimately, knows the truth…which brings us to the matter of the IOC’s harsh, early dismissal of Chicago as a considered site for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
What has stood out about that vote has been sincere, puzzled curiosity expressed by reasonably independent observers like Rowdy Gaines, 3-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming. Gaines indicated that he felt Chicago’s bid was very strong…and certainly strong enough to see it survive the first-ballot vote, where it was instead dispatched like an annoying gnat at a picnic. What, then, could have gone so terribly wrong?
The only reasonable conclusion to which one can come is that the rest of the international community wanted to teach King Barack and Queens Michelle (could the First Lady have delivered a more self-aggrandizing, narcissistic speech to the IOC?) and Oprah that the obvious presumptuousness with which our apparent royalty approached this pursuit would not go unpunished. Tony Harris of Communist News Network tellingly displayed that arrogance himself, when Chicago’s elimination was announced and he exclaimed, “Chicago is out?? Madrid is in?? Tokyo is in??” His instinctively condescending attitude said it all, and it is quite likely that this attitude, surely identified early on by the IOC, led to Chicago’s early exit. This “loss” was not, in my opinion, based on some sort of detailed, objective, empirical analysis of the bids, but rather on the sort of thought process that causes much of the school to vote against the popular girl for homecoming queen precisely because she egotistically expected to win all along.
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Robert G. Yetman, Jr., Editor-At-Large www.ChristianMoney.com
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