Obama, Chicago Partners in Embarassment

Editor's note: This is an updated version of an earlier column.

COPENHAGEN -- This was the world thumbing its nose -- no, flipping its middle finger -- at America. This was the world telling America what it can do with its President Obama, its Michelle Obama, its Oprah Winfrey, its belief that it simply could drop into Europe and use Hollywood dazzle to win an Olympic bid. This was the world telling America that we still don't like you enough in 2009 to back you in 2016.

And this was Chicago, city of sleazy politicians, getting a wicked taste of its own backdoor medicine. Seems the fixers got jobbed this time.

Anti-Americanism was alive and not well Friday in the Danish capital, where Chicago -- widely believed to have the most practical and safest bid -- was eliminated in the first round by International Olympic Committee voters. Not in the finals or the second round, mind you, but in the first round, which constitutes a statement just as rude and telling as the one made four years ago when New York was ousted early. Only hours after the president delivered what sounded like another campaign speech after an all-night flight, Obama was floored on Air Force One by the news that he had been outpoliticked by the more emotional, sincere and harder-working Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil. Silva pounded home the void that never has made much sense: South America hasn't hosted an Olympic Games. And with the International Olympic Committee voters in no mood to do favors for the U.S., it was a convenient time to award the Games to Rio de Janeiro, where the thong bikini was born and where a teary-eyed Pele won the game this week that a U.S. sports legend, Michael Jordan, never showed up for.


The ramifications are rippling. It's another blow for Obama, whose big talking hasn't resulted in much action on a growing number of fronts. He gambled and failed miserably in Denmark, traveling overseas and getting his butt whipped to the delight of Republicans ripping him for wasting his time in a competition in which he finished dead last. Seems there was too much Hollywood and not enough heart and substance for the voters, who liked the Obamas and Oprah as celebrities but perhaps sensed an arrogance and a lack of understanding about their precious Olympic movement. The president took a chance with a significant at-bat on the international level. Not only did he go down swinging, he got nailed in the head with a fastball.

"We are not going to put this on President Obama," Chicago 2016 bid chairman Patrick Ryan said. "We just didn't win today."

But was there too much starpower for the IOC crowd? Too much O-verload in the hotel lobbies and meeting rooms? "We don't have any reason to believe that,'' said Ryan, the 72-year-old insurance mogul who sounded, unfortunately, like a 72-year-old insurance mogul in an awkward speech during the final presentation. "Everyone was extremely well-received, extremely well-liked."

"I don't think so. I think the support from the president and the first lady was fabulous," said Larry Probst, chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee, which didn't help Chicago's cause with its organizational disarray in recent months. "Everything they did was spectacular. I couldn't be happier to have them as part of the presentation."
Um, couldn't the president have spent a little more time in Copenhagen? Kicked back and stayed a while instead of trying to run-and-gun the bid? "Too business-like," said former IOC member Kai Holm. "It can be that some IOC members see it as a lack of respect."

The talk was heavy, too, that the IOC simply can't stand the USOC, which has had a tumultuous year that included a disagreement with the IOC over a USOC-designed Olympics TV network. Was it true Asian voters rallied together to vote for Tokyo, knocking out Chicago early? "I'm shocked," IOC member Kevan Gosper, of Australia, told the Associated Press. "The whole thing doesn't make sense other than there has been a stupid bloc vote ... To have the president of the United States and his wife personally appear, then this should happen in the first round, is awful and totally undeserving."

As for Chicago, well, forget Steve Bartman, the Cubs, a fire supposedly started by Mrs. O'Leary's cow and your other civic embarrassments through time. What happened in the Danish capital reconfirmed what I've always suspected about the place: It simply can't win the big one. I mean, they brought their hometown hero, Obama. They brought his wife. They brought Oprah. But in the end, as always, they couldn't win anything without Jordan, who declined to come but sure was quick to do a CNN interview lamenting Chicago's defeat. The difference between this loss and the typical sports loss in Chicago was $100 million, the cost of the bidding process. That's about 20 million Italian beef sandwiches, not that the world will be tasting Chicago's culinary grease in seven years.

In the IOC, Obama and Mayor Richard M. Daley met an opponent more formidable than the Chicago political machine. This is the shiftiest group in all of sports, and rather than go with the surer financial bet of Chicago, they went with the zeal of the Brazilians. Daley's legacy as a can-do mayor will take a major hit. He isn't sophisticated enough to dazzle a global audience and forever will be known as a village idiot who rose to power on the coattails of his father, Richard J. Daley.

"I'm disappointed but you go on with your life," said Daley, who spent his evening consoling disappointed Chicagoans at a hotel.

What about 2020? Uh, no. "It's already in this hemisphere, with Rio, and it would not make sense for an American city to try again in 2020," he said. "It's in this hemisphere and they have to move somewhere else."

Did Jordan's absence hurt? I don't think it cost Chicago the Games, but having passed Pele three times in the media center hallway, always wearing a smile and a bounce in his step, I can say that the presence of the soccer icon helped Rio. "It is very important to participate when your country needs you," Pele said in one of the week's influential remarks. "If I have to die for my country, I would die for my country. If I have to die for my sport, I would die for my sport. I feel very happy if I can help my country." Jordan would die for a cigar or a golfing bet, but not for the city that built a statue for him.

This was a particularly harsh defeat for Chicago, in that the Olympics represented a chance to finally bust out globally after years in the shadows of New York and Los Angeles. The inferiority complex I wrote about in a previous column firmly remains intact, more painful than ever. The Cubs haven't won in 101 years. The White Sox have won once in 92 years. The Bears have won once in 45 years. The Blackhawks haven't won in 48 years. Hosting the Olympics would have cut through those self-esteem problems and given the city its own stage to go cosmopolitan and shed the world's cliche images: Al Capone, hog butcher to the world, Jordan. Instead, Chicago loses by this first-round score -- Madrid 28, Rio 26, Tokyo 22, Chicago 18.

Not even close.

And this will hurt for a long time in the Second City because, unlike baseball, there is no next year. The world has made its evaluation on Chicago after years of close inspection. The city is not worthy of an international stage, a frustration revealed in Ryan's voice during a messy exchange with reporters. Want a symbolic scene of the Chicago bid? While dozens of media people wanted a word with anyone involved in the Bella Center, the IOC decided to put Ryan and Probst in a doorway, leading to pushing, shoving and yelling among reporters and cameramen. Noticing the mob in front of his face, Ryan lost his cool.

"We'll use a sports metaphor -- we had a great team, a great plan and IT WASN'T OUR DAY TO WIN TODAY!" he shouted. "If you'd be quiet, you can hear. We fought a good fight, and I'm very proud of our team and very proud of the support from the city of Chicago. That's the way it goes. Some days you win, some days you don't. We didn't today."

But does Chicago ever win? Not as much as it should. Pittsburgh, about one-fifth the size, boasts the Super Bowl and Stanley Cup champions at the same time. Chicago is thrilled to death whenever it makes the playoffs in anything. Not surprisingly, Ryan was blase and non-committal about a future bid, while Probst, whose committee now has suffered two straight crushing losses, only could say, "We'll evaluate a future bid. But we certainly feel disappointed. That's how it goes, and we'll continue to be part of the global Olympic movement."

Forgetting the usual need for prim-and-proper behavior, the staid, stuffy IOC members broke from protocol during Obama's visit. They grabbed their cell phones and giddily took photos of the president, confirming that they view him as a rock star more than the leader of the free world. "I urge you to choose Chicago," Obama told the voting members during his brisk five-hour stay. "And if you do -- if we walk this path together -- then I promise you this: The city of Chicago and the United States of America will make the world proud."

He sounded, as GOP House leader John Boehner has complained, like a parochial homer. "He's the president of the United States, not the mayor of Chicago," the Ohio Republican said. Would Obama have come to Denmark if another U.S. city were bidding and not his hometown? Probably not. "You see, growing up, my family moved around a lot. And I never really had roots in any one place, culture or ethnic group," Obama told the voters. "Then I came to Chicago. And on those Chicago streets, I worked alongside men and women who were black and white, Latino and Asian, people of every class and nationality and religion. I came to discover that Chicago is that most American of American cities, one where citizens from more than 130 nations inhabit a rich tapestry of distinctive neighborhoods.

He made his points. Not that they mattered in the end.


Did he lack a certain energy? Yes, perhaps understandable after an all-night flight. His counterpart, Silva, displayed the impassioned verve of a man who had been sleeping in Denmark all week and was ready to brawl. While Obama and the Chicago leaders emphasized financial and security advantages -- yes, even with all the city's crime, Chicago somehow is safer than Rio -- Silva went big on the glaring fact that South America never has hosted the Games. To pound home the country's point, Rio bid leader Carlos Nuzman used a map while citing the number of times each continent has hosted the Games: 30 for Europe, five for Asia, two in Oceania and 12 in North America -- a whopping eight in the U.S.

"Among top 10 economies of the world, Brazil is only one that has not hosted an Olympics and Paralympic Games," Silva said. "For the others, it is just one more Games; for us it will be an unparalleled opportunity. The Olympic Games belong to all people, all continents, all humanity. It is a time to address this imbalance. It is time to light the Olympic cauldron in a tropical country."

Equally emotional was former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, the 89-year-old Spaniard who pleaded with voters to choose Madrid. "I know that I am very near the end of my time," Samaranch said. "I am, as you know 89 years old. May I ask you to consider granting my country the honor and also the duty to organize the games in 2016. Thank you." It worked to a degree -- Madrid finished second.

So the question became whether Obama's mere appearance would be enough to land the bid. The answer was no, by a landslide. The Barack-loves-Chicago theme continued -- to the point of ad nauseum, some outsiders might say -- when he said a video that was shown to IOC members "made me miss home." Never mind that he lives in Washington and has been criticized in Chicago for not spending enough time there. "There is nothing I would like more than to step just a few blocks from my family's home and with Michelle and our two girls welcome the world back to our neighborhood," Obama said. And when he wasn't talking, his wife was making a more emotional plea, arguably stealing the show after showing some initial jitters. Michelle Obama spoke of growing up on the South Side, in a family without much money, spending time watching the Olympics with her late father as he battled multiple sclerosis.

"Some of my best memories are of siting on my dad's lap and cheering," she said. "I was inspired and found myself dreaming that maybe, just maybe, if I worked hard enough, I could do something great. Even as we watched my dad struggle to hold himself up on crutches, he never stopped playing with us. And he refused to let us take our abilities for granted. He believed that his little girl should be taught no less than his son. So he taught me how to throw a ball and a mean right hook better than any boy in our neighborhood. My dad was my hero. And when I think of what these Games can mean to people all over the world, I think about people like my dad: people who face seemingly insurmountable challenges."

The two prominent local reps, Daley and Ryan, did themselves no favors during the presentations. Daley rambled like a man who has been on the road too long. As for Ryan, why was he referencing Chicago's "shopping" edge? He doesn't think Rio, Madrid and Tokyo have great shopping districts?

"These Games can be a reminder that America at its best is open to the world,'' the president said.

The world isn't open to America, apparently.

As for the critics who have made an issue of Obama spending a morning in Copenhagen with so much else on his presidential plate, his chief of staff had a retort. "You know," Rahm Emanuel said, "we'll make sure they get some good seats once Chicago does host the Games."

Oops.

"I don't want to call it trouble. We introduced Chicago to the world," Ryan said. "Chicago is so much better known today and appreciated and respected -- all around the world. Chicagoans can hold their heads high. We're sorry we didn't bring home a victory."

Where have we heard that before?

All on the next Oprah.