Not Even the Bronze

When Fred Barnes and the New York Times concur, the Millennium must be near. The Times (admittedly, the sports section, not the editorial page) has a less than worshipful account of President Obama’s Olympic lobbying:

President Obama not only failed to bring home the gold, he could not even muster the silver or bronze.

A 20-hour mission across the ocean to persuade the International Olympic Committee to give the Summer Games of 2016 to Chicago ended with the president’s adopted hometown finishing fourth of four candidate cities.

Although Chicago might have lost to Rio de Janeiro for reasons that had little to do with Mr. Obama, the fact that he made himself the face of its bid invariably meant that its defeat would be taken as a stinging rejection of its favorite son.

Losing out on the Olympics, of course, is not the sort of war-and-peace issue that defines a presidency, and the embarrassment will presumably fade in a news cycle or two. But it provides fodder for critics who are already using it as a metaphor for a president who, in their view, focuses on the wrong priorities and overestimates his capacity to persuade the world to follow his lead.

Mr. Obama looked glum as he returned to Washington on Friday afternoon and said, “I wish that we had come back with better news from Copenhagen.” He portrayed the defeat as if it were little more than a lost game of pickup basketball. “One of the things that I think is most valuable about sports is that you can play a great game and still not win,” he said in the Rose Garden. . . .

Mr. Obama’s decision to become the first American president to lobby the Olympic committee in person, just two weeks after saying he was too busy with health care legislation, was a gamble from the start. It was predicated on the theory that Mr. Obama’s star power overseas — “the best brand in the world,” as his advisers have put it — was luminescent enough to make the difference. . . .

A sense of stunned bewilderment suffused Air Force One and the White House. Only after the defeat did many advisers ask questions about the byzantine politics of the Olympic committee. Valerie Jarrett, the president’s senior adviser and a Chicago booster who persuaded him to make the trip while at the United Nations last week, had repeatedly compared the contest to the Iowa caucuses.

But officials said the administration did not independently verify Chicago’s chances, relying instead on the Chicago 2016 committee assertions that the city had enough support to finish in the top two. Mr. Obama, Michelle Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Ms. Jarrett worked the phones in recent weeks without coming away with a sense of how behind Chicago really was.

Fred Barnes draws the not very recondite morals from this story:

First, when an American president voluntarily takes up a fight and loses badly, it’s a big deal. Obama could have stayed out. Having the summer Olympics in Chicago doesn’t involve the national interest. But he thought the matter important enough to fly to Denmark and make the pitch for his hometown in person. He put his prestige on the line, only to be slapped down. He can’t blame George W. Bush for this one, though his minions may try.

We know the world loves Obama. What the action by the International Olympic Committee demonstrates is that being loved isn’t the same as being influential or taken seriously or respected or feared – the traits of many of Obama’s predecessors in the presidency. If he can’t deliver on a vote of the IOC, does he really have the clout to pressure the mullahs in Iran into giving up their nuclear ambitions? Maybe not.

Second, Obama’s aides assured reporters the president wouldn’t be put in a position where he could be embarrassed. But that’s exactly what happened. The White House gang thought the IOC was poised to ratify the president’s bid for a Chicago Olympics. Hardly anyone else shared that view, including the Japanese, who figured Tokyo wouldn’t be picked but Rio would be and Chicago would finish last.

The issue here is one of incompetence. Somebody – maybe more than one person – didn’t scope out the inclinations of the IOC’s voting members adequately or utterly misread how a personal appearance by the American president would be received. Imagine if something like this occurred on a national security issue. Then the media would demand accountability. The Olympics issue is hardly as consequential, but that shouldn’t inhibit the press in seeking accountability.

Third, where was the charisma, the skill in persuading people to see things Obama’s way? The media has built Obama up as a communicator who’s the equal of Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt. True, he’s delivered several fine speeches, but all of them before he became president. Now he’s either lost his touch or never was the orator the press said he was.

I don’t suppose that the President’s speech to the IOC was a decisive factor in Chicago’s defeat. When you lose by ten runs, does it matter whether you sent in the wrong closer? Still, it was about as unpersuasive a spiel as one can imagine, almost a parody of the narcissism that has become the principal feature of Mr. Obama’s oratory:

Nearly one year ago, on a clear November night, people from every corner of the world gathered in the city of Chicago or in front of their televisions to watch the results of the U.S. Presidential election. Their interest wasn’t about me as an individual. Rather, it was rooted in the belief that America’s experiment in democracy still speaks to a set of universal aspirations and ideals. Their interest sprung from the hope that in this ever-shrinking world, our diversity could be a source of strength, a cause for celebration; and that with sustained work and determination, we could learn to live and prosper together during the fleeting moment we share on this Earth.

Now, that work is far from over, but it has begun in earnest. And while we do not know what the next few years will bring, there is nothing I would like more than to step just a few blocks from my family's home, with Michelle and our two girls, and welcome the world back into our neighborhood.

Just as in his speech to the U.N. last week, the President singled out his own election as an historical turning point. Sure, he added, “It isn’t about me”, but whenever a guy says that, you know that he believes it is. There’s no escaping the implication that, but for the American voters’ wisdom in choosing Barack Obama, we would not be able “to learn to live and prosper together”. Maybe the Olympic bigwigs, for all their faults, have a different idea of the turning points of history.

Failure in Copenhagen may not have been a “killer rabbit moment”, but, like that famous Jimmy Carter incident, it is one of those events, minor in and of itself, that defines and illuminates the weaknesses of an Administration. Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, etc. are complicated matters, whose flow of news often swamps the public’s comprehension. The Olympics are simple, and botching them so badly can’t easily be spun away.