"When a Jazzman's testifying, a faithless man believes, he can sing you into paradise or bring you to his knees. It's a gospel kind of feelin', a touch of Georgia slide, a song of pure revival and a style that's sanctified".(Carole King - Jazzman, 1978)
The Copenhagen trip by the president and first lady is something we are not supposed to be too negative about. It is perceived as unseemly to rag on the president for simply trying to bring the Olympics to America. It was only 18 hours on Air Force One, and certainly work on other matters would be accomplished. Also, in the grand scheme of things, we have so much to worry about like healthcare, Afghanistan, Iran and climate change, it seems petty to harp on such an issue. Plus its yesterday's news, so we should just move on. Yet the trip was such a clarifying moment that it is too important to ignore. We have downplayed its relevance, not overplayed it.
I found it perplexing when the president announced the trip, as it reversed what he said 2 weeks prior. As a sports fan, the Olympics have always been at the lower rung of my interest ladder, even as they can inspire from time to time. The International Olympic Committee has been linked to scandals and has always had a sleazy reputation. The Olympics have always been more spectacle than sports, like halftime at the Super Bowl. Politics also has a dominant presence. The worst example, of course, were the Munich 1972 games when Arafat thugs kidnapped and murdered Israeli athletes. Before that, there were the Black Power salutes in the Mexico City 1968 games. We also remember the Berlin games of 1936--think of that for a second, the IOC chose Nazi Germany--with Hitler holding court as Jesse Owens defeated the self-defined "Aryan" race. We also had the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Olympics as protest, ironically, for Russia fighting the war in Afghanistan. Then there are those tedious articles about whether Americans are too jingoistic because we root for other Americans. My worst nightmare is the NFL getting involved in partisan politics like the IOC. NBC's Sunday Night Football is already on the borderline, as Keith Olbermann does double duty with his pre-game host position. Sports is supposed to be a Safe-Zone from politics.
From a monetary perspective, the Olympics would have been bad for Chicago and US taxpayers and a boon for Chicago insiders. London is supposedly already in the hole for $20 billion as the host for the 2012 Olympics. But that simply means a set of interest groups are on the receiving end of $20 billion. One reason China and Brazil were so hot to trot on getting the games is it represents to them (again, political thinking) recognition--like a national booster campaign. As a giant "advertisement", the games are not expected to "make money", but improve national "brand image". Finally, when I think US Olympics, I think Peter Ueberroth, not Ronald Reagan. So it wasn't that the president had better things to do which bothered me, as much as wondering why he would even think he should do this at all.
Off course, the answer is that he was lobbied hard by the city of Chicago (where the word "jazz" was first applied to music in 1915) to do this. Obviously somebody thought they could make money. This was all about the big dollars. We now know that Chicago had committed the most amount of money to the event, according to the IOC. So Obama was providing political payback for his Chicago backers. The national media intelligentsia simply assumed that the "fix was in". Implicit in their thinking, I believe, was much of what is written above. Basically the thought process was, "who cares about the Olympics?". Therefore, in order for a president to go make a silly sales pitch, he must know his appearance was required to seal the deal. Otherwise, it made no sense. This is why it was so shocking to both the left and the right when the IOC seemed to go the extra yard in mocking the US with its first round knockout. It is inconceivable to me Obama thought this was possible. There is no good way to spin this. He was playing a game in which he was in way over his head. It is like the joke about the sucker in a poker game. If you don't know who it is, it means its you. Where else in the world is America the "sucker"?
Count me in as one who believes Obama thinks he is a "Jazzman". There is nothing more illuminating than the famous "creepy cult of personality" Charlie Rose interview with Evan Thomas and Jon Meacham of Newsweek, conducted the day after the 2008 election Charlie Rose - A conversation with Jon Meacham & Evan Thomas. Newsweek's Thomas was "embedded" in the Obama campaign as Newsweek has done with both parties since 1984. The first 10 minutes of the interview are even more remarkable in hindsight. Meacham and Thomas emphasized how "self-contained" Obama was at all times. In meetings, he would require all to participate. While Obama "was always in charge", one "never could tell what his view" was. They viewed Obama as "someone who can get people to do what he wants" while being "elusive" in expressing his own opinions. They discuss that Obama first decided to enter politics when he ran for head of the Harvard Law Review. That was when he realized "{he} had a gift", and "that people want to help him". They recall Obama's view that he is "a screen upon which people project their hopes". The Newsweek boys believed that he "projected brilliantly and was always in control". Ultimately, he "knows the power of his own ability". If this were written today, it could almost be seen as an attack. In November 2008, it was a paean. In other words, Newsweek viewed his "elusiveness" as a sign of withheld wisdom.
Looking back at the Newsweek perspective, how should we now view his trip to Copehagen? Or his views on healthcare, stimulus, climate change, Iran or Afghanistan?
Jazzman, take my blues away.
Mike - Interesting article and I agree with you on this.
The loss of the games is not by any means a national disaster (for the reasons you cite), though equally it should not be a cause for celebration among those who hope the outcome will damage Obama politically. (Whatever happened to "Country First"?) However, Obama opened the door to some of this by his own inept handling of the situation.
The fact of the matter is that the Olympic powers-that-be wanted the Games to go to South America, and barring a total screw-up by Rio (which was never on the cards) the decision was entirely predictable.
Obama should simply have done what each of the other heads of state did - shown up at Copenhagen to help waive the flag, shaken the requisite hands and returned home knowing he'd done his best to support the national cause, regardless of the probability of success. Instead, he made an initial decision that the U.S. bid was not winnable and decided to take a pass. His excuse - that he was too busy with other more weighty matters - was ludicrous. He simply didn't want to be associated with a losing cause. Then the sycophants in the Chicago organizing committee apparently prevailed upon Obama to believe that his unmatched prestige, oratory and powers of persuasion could yet carry the day; or maybe Obama started to believe the anonymous Olympic insiders who had begun talking up the prospects of a U.S. victory and he didn't want Oprah to walk away with all the credit. Either way he fell victim to his own hubris.
Having changed his mind and deciding to make a dramatic last-minute apearance at Copenhagen, Obama put himself in the position of being damed if he did and damned if he didn't. Had he not gone, many of the same people who now criticize him for wasting political capital (including surprisingly the NY Times) would equally have criticized him for not going. But as usual he made his decision based not on principle but on flawed political calculus, and he is now paying the price.
He may indeed be a jazzman, but the more complex the music becomes the more his tin ear is exposed.
Posted by: Andrew Sheldrick | October 07, 2009 at 10:12 AM