Bummer

So Rio de Janeiro will get the 2016 Olympics. Bummer.

Oh, I don't begrudge Rio- or South America, or the Third World- their Olympics. But it's a shame that my home town, Chicago- one of the world's great cities, and one always compelled to live out its existence in the shadow of New York (and in recent years, the far less substantial Los Angeles), should have missed out on its moment in the sun. It's not just my conviction that Chicago would have done a far more impressive job than Rio will do, or the other contestants would have done. If Atlanta could do the Olympics so very, very well, Chicago could have done them even better. Whenever my home town is presented with a challenge of this kind, it always comes through. That, as much as bringing a gun to a knife fight, is "the Chicago way."

Yeah, I'm bummed by that. And I'm well aware that the idea of hosting the Olympics was very far from being universally popular among the folks back home. But for Chicago do have been the first city eliminated- especially given the options, the advantages the city offered, and the profound lack of transparency in the selection process- is even harder to take than the defeat itself. Plausible explanations have been slow in coming. The one that seems to make the most sense is simple anti-Americanism.

Which brings me to the point that disappoints me most of all. I'm even more bummed that so many of my fellow Americans were rooting against their own country just in order to express opposition to President Obama. This may be the first time that these particular folks climbed into bed with Hugo Chavez, Kim Il Sung, and the Muhajamoonbats in Tehran, but it ill-becomes them.

I'm not a huge Obama fan, either. But whatever one thinks of his lobbying efforts on Chicago's behalf, letting them be a reason to root against America is tacky. And it's all the more disappointing because when Americans root against America, it's not generally those particular people who do so.

They disappoint me even more than the outcome of the vote in Copenhagen.