Our President found one community his thugs couldn't organize into submission: the International Olympic Committee. Without their usual control of the ballots, Obama's adoptive hometown cronies found themselves, for once, on the losing side of an election.
Our Kenyan Prince found that the only thing rotten in today's state of Denmark was his entourage of neighborhood fixers. When he flew—with taxpayer funds!—to Copenhagen, the only "wonderful" thing he found was the backbone of an international community that refused to be bullied or bought off.
Did he consider it "lobbying" for the games when he shared a joke with Chavez, or a hug with Ortega, or as he bowed to King Abdullah? For a man so concerned with international opinion, he sure seemed deaf to it in Denmark. Did he think he'd wow the voters with visits from Chicago pals Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, and Valerie Jarrett? Is that the "trans-national" multicultural vision of America he wished to share?
If you listen closely, you can still hear the cries of disappointment ringing out from the White House and Millennium Park. Oh, perhaps it was racism that cost us the games! Could we blame Bush, somehow? If only the IOC had more Wise Latinas!
We can but now only imagine how the Chicago games would've played out. New events could've included 100-meter graft. A voter registration forgery relay race, perhaps? The shooting and running portion of the pentathlon wouldn't have to change too much, though we might replace "swimming" with "freestyle gangbanging" (unless you want to be the first one in that frigid "lake").
And those medal ceremonies? Not in Obama's America. There shouldn't be "winners" and "losers," after all. Those finding themselves in the unfortunate (but faultless!) position of "last place" shall be rewarded with gold of their own, from TARP. And if, perchance, the judges reward your dive with a perfect score? You'll be strongly encouraged to "share" some of those points with your neighbors.
At the last quarter, should our basketball Dream Team be down a score or two, well, Obama and Reggie Love just might fly themselves in to join the team and use some of that famed political capitol and rhetorical brilliance to persuade the Iranian team to miss an easy layup. If we're still in a point deficit at the buzzer, we can blame Republicans for misrepresenting the score. (The CBO estimates, after all, that should the game be projected to 2020, it'd end in a tie!)
We remember, of course, the heroic and miraculous Olympics of 1984, when a President named Reagan played host to most of the world (besides the Communist nations, making great games even greater) in Los Angeles (this was the California before Obama and Pelosi, of course, when the state still functioned). And we also remember the games of 1996, which Bubba couldn't protect from a devastating terrorist attack. Lord knows what might've transpired in Chicago after eight years of rolling back our national security apparatus, holding back our intelligence agencies, and reading terrorists their rights. The happily "reformed" and released Guantanamo prisoners could've built the arenas themselves, with money from the third (or fourth!) stimulus!
When Chicago hosted its famed World's Fair in 1893, the closing ceremonies had to be canceled and replaced with Mayor Carter Harrison's memorial service. He'd just been assassinated, you see. By an immigrant, no less. So perhaps, one inclined toward politically incorrect fantasias may find himself darkly imagining, the 2016 Chicago Olympics could've ended on a high note.
Alex Pareene is a syndicated columnist, the editor of The National Interest, and the author of Turnabout: Why America Betrays Israel At Its Own Risk and A Hike With Herbert Hoover, a novel.