Tag: olympics

Whom the WH wishes to snub… #rsrh

…they send Joe Biden, according to Andrew Malcolm.  Andrew’s being perhaps the slightest bit unkind to the administration this morning – there may have been a legitimate reason for the President not to have attended the Vancouver Olympics himself, although the fact that Biden is combining the trip with a fundraiser for Patty Murray is diagnostic – but I’m more fascinated with the Vancouver logo than I am whether or not the President’s being more petulant than usual. I mean, look at it:

6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a864c647970b-300wi

About the only thing that you can say about it is that at least this one doesn’t look like it’s having sex.

Moe Lane

PS: And shouldn’t the arms be black?

PPS: I’m just going to give up entirely on the lack of capitalization, mind you.

Ironic quote of yesterday, Rahm Emanuel edition.

“…you know we’ll make sure they get some good seats once Chicago does host the games.”

– Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s ego, busily writing checks that his boss can’t cash. Not that the President isn’t capable of doing that all on his own, as witnessed by this trip in the first place – but it’s nice to see that he has such a capable underling to handle any potential overload in that regard.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

The Crazy Tree: MSNBC throwing Hanoi Jane under the bus.

MSNBC apparently thinks that the Republicans – not to mention, half of the population of Chicago – are collectively Jane Fonda; and that the IOC are the North Vietnamese. Forty or so years of defensively defending the indefensible by the Left, and it all goes up like a bit of match paper to try to cover up a simple error in judgment by a President who too many people have invested themselves in never, ever allowing him to fail.

Wow.  Can the IOC come back tomorrow and eliminate Chicago from consideration again?  This is proving to be unexpectedly entertaining.

Via @CalebHowe.

Crossposted to RedState.

Olympics 2016: an inconvenient truth for the President.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

Let me explain what happened here to President Obama with regard to the Olympic bid.

One has to make a distinction between the people of the world, and the governments of the world. The people of the world generally like the USA/Americans/the concept of America for one or more of the following reasons:

  • Because we are free;
  • Because we are vulgar;
  • Because we are loud;
  • And because we visibly do not care if anybody likes that or not.

Meanwhile, most national governments do not like the USA/Americans/the concept of America for one or more of the following reasons:

  • Because we are free;
  • Because we are vulgar;
  • Because we are loud;
  • And because we visibly do not care if anybody likes that or not.

So, when the President went to the IOC to get this valuable thing for his home city and country, I’m sure that he thought that he would be able to remedy the situation.  But all that he did was make it clear to people who don’t like us very much – mostly for the ‘vulgar’ and ‘loud’ bits – that he and the USA could be quite gratifyingly (to them) snubbed.  So they did.  And they enjoyed doing it, because they know that there’s damned little that the USA can do to them about it.

Personally, I’m grateful: this is an incredibly cheap lesson in Foreign Relations 120: Why we don’t have better relations with certain countries.  It is my sincere hope that the President take the hint, and stop worrying quite so much about our overseas reputation.  And by ‘stop worrying quite as much’ I mean ‘visibly do not care.’

Moe Lane

PS: There are quite a few governments that do not hate us, of course.  Unfortunately, these days one thing that they mostly have in common is in having been snubbed by this administration.  It’d be great if that stopped happening.

Crossposted to RedState.

Today is the 66th anniversary of the rescue of the Danish Jews.

If you don’t know the story, let me sum it up for you: at the end of August, 1943 the country of Denmark was finally fully taken over by Nazi Germany.  This meant, among other things, that the Jewish population of Denmark (roughly 8,000) was now in deadly danger: the Danish government had been, up to that point, politely, respectfully, and absolutely inflexibly refusing to allow Nazi Germany to persecute its Jewish citizens.  While the story that the King of Denmark himself wore the yellow star is not true, what is true is that no Danish Jew did – and if you think that this is a minor point, well, no, it’s not: things like the star were the tools used to isolate Jews from the larger community, thus making it possible to go on with sequestering them into ghettos, then taking them away to be murdered.

So.  When the Danish government was taken out of the picture as an independent entity, the Nazis suddenly had a clear hand to take away the Danish Jews on October 1, 1943 – only a (German) diplomat got word of the planned deportation, and on September 28, 1943, tipped off the Danes.  Who then proceeded to smuggle their Jewish population out of the country and to Sweden in an ad hoc, spur-of-the-moment rescue mission.  The few that the Nazis swept up continued to be protected by the Danes; in marked contrast to other nations, Denmark constantly raised a stink about Danish Jews, resulting in their being transferred to a relatively safe concentration camp and allowed Red Cross supplies.  It is estimated that the actions of Denmark saved roughly 95% of their Jewish population – and this, I think, says more about the stubborn decency of the Danes than anything else:

Denmark was also different and special in another way. Almost everywhere else in Europe, returning Jews found their homes had been broken into, and everything of value stolen. When the Danish Jews returned , they discovered that their homes, pets, gardens and personal belongings were cared for by their neighbors.

What with the various thiings going on in and to the USA right now, it might surprise some of you to hear that the President is actually going to Copenhagen (capital of Denmark) this week. To plead for a Chicago venue for the 2016 Olympics.

Fuck the Olympics.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.