Nolympic Update

I've joked that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sees Americans as too arrogant and too vulgar to be trusted with hosting the Olympic Games (like when it comes to opening ceremonies) as a reason for Chicago not getting the 2016 Olympics, but even though I was only joking, my dears, I'm not exactly that far off.

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) has been at odds with the IOC over revenue sharing of American broadcasts of the Olympics. Peter Ueberroth, when he was the USOC's chairman, had blocked a negotiation with the IOC on the issue. The USOC has also been accused of wanting to monopolize revenues collected from an American Olympiad and thinking they can offer superior facilities for such an event without playing well with the international body. NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol put it this way after Chicago lost its bid for the 2016 Games: "This was the IOC membership saying to the USOC there will be no more domestic Olympics until you join the Olympic movement."

Not going to happen. Americans are legendary for refusing to join the rest of the world.

William Kristol, the conservative journalist, said after the rejected Chicago bid that Americans don't need the Olympics and all of the logistical nightmares that apply and therefore should just shrug them off. What he was really saying was that Americans don't need the rest of the world telling us what to do.

Oh yes, we do. We haven't demonstrated much of an ability to act intelligently on the world stage. Many is the time we should have listened to the rest of the world and avoided getting ourselves into trouble.

I hope you didn't take my earlier jokes seriously. But then, I never said this blog was a legitimate news source. :-p