After today’s announcement by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Rio de Janeiro, Brazil would be the host of the 2016 Olympics, supporters and opponents of the President immediately began debating his impact on the decision. This was a debate that had been simmering for a week, due in no small part to the revelation that the President had spent considerably less time than one would expect with his U.S. Commander in Afghanistan. His presence in Copenhagen was also not assisted by another devastating round of unemployment numbers announced this morning, bringing U.S. unemployment to the brink of 10%.
So can you blame President Obama for not bringing home the gold? The answer is no, but his arrogance was certainly on full display. Any U.S. President would have been expected to proudly make the sales pitch for Chicago, and America as a whole, but the way President Obama went about it was very indicative of the way he leads on more pressing domestic and international issues.
In 2008, when the President was elected, it was viewed as a net positive to America’s chances in this competition. In fact, ESPN noted that a win by Senator McCain may have made the situation worse, due to his “scathing investigation of the bribery scandal involving IOC members who helped award the 2002 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City.” Certainly, IOC members may not have appreciated more scrutiny nor rewarded his oversight in the past. But the Obama team worked hard on their bid, with senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett, a former Chicago 2016 Board Member who was replaced by the Obama campaign Treasurer, leading the charge, with a specially designed White House office.
And the first people to tell you about the hard work it took the White House would be the President and Mrs. Obama themselves. The First Lady told boosters this week: “As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days, so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home.” Has anyone commented on their tremendous sacrifice? They flew several private jumbo jets (carbon footprint?) to beautiful Copenhagen for three days. This is not the sacrifice Americans are familiar with.
Frankly, it was the job of all of these well connected Chicago 2016 White House insiders to let their colleagues know whether a multi-million dollar trip to Copenhagen was worth it. If the United States was running neck and neck with Brazil, there is little doubt the President should have been there. If they were running a close third, then the trip is still probably in the nation’s best interests. But fourth place? The Olympics themselves don’t honor fourth place. Either the White House knew where they stood and arrogantly thought the President could change minds, or they didn’t know, meaning the White House had little or no ability to use dozens of high-profile insiders to gage the temperature of less than 100 IOC voters. Both scenarios are hard to believe.
If the speech was considered the tipping point, how did it go? Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, gave an impassioned speech saying: “It’s time to address this imbalance. The Olympic Games belongs to all people, all continents, all humanity,” referring to the fact that the Olympics had never been held in South America. It wasn’t about Lula, rather it was about an entire culture that felt it could proudly lead these games.
Michelle Obama spoke about her time growing up in Chicago, and passionately spoke of her father’s influence on her love for sports. She said “I” or “me” 26 times in an address that lasted only a few minutes. She closed by saying: “…and to give us hope; and to change lives all over the world. And I’ve brought somebody with me today who knows a little something about change,” and then introduced her husband. Hope. Change. This wasn’t about America, or our culture, this was about the Obamas.
President Obama arrived at the lectern and also included 26 “I’s” or “Me’s” in his speech. Towards the end of the speech, he even had to remind the audience that it wasn’t about him, the individual, after describing the throngs of people who turned out to watch him win the election in November. He talked about why he ran for President. He talked about meeting the First Lady in Chicago.
See, what the President and the First Lady missed is that the Olympics aren’t about change. They’ve had the same running distances, the same sized shot put, the same discus for centuries. Some things don’t need to be changed. Did their inclusion of their familiar campaign rhetoric end our bid? Probably not. The reality is that the choice of who would host the Olympics was most likely not made in the past two days alone. Just as in a presidential election, voters most likely had their preferences before arriving in Copenhagen to vote.
The problem is that the Obamas thought it was about them, until they lost and then it was about something else. Either the White House knew they were coming in fourth and the President thought that much of his oratory skills, or the due diligence of their closest advisors was paltry at best. Either way, let’s hope they don’t keep repeating this scenario on other important issues.
Dan O’Brien was an American decathlete who in 1992, was poised for Olympic Gold. He was so hyped up that he got arrogant. He passed up lower pole vault settings because he thought he could reach the sky on every try. He lost. He was still a world record holder, but now he was also a champion in humility. America loves champions of humility. Congratulations Rio! You earned this.
Michelle Obama flew to Denmark on Wednesday to pitch Chicago as the host city for the 2016 Olympics. President Obama arrived in Copenhagen this morning to make his own pitch, saying that it could repair the American image. Chicago was knocked out in the first round of votes, but that’s beside the point.
Two people. Two planes. Three days. Not very green.
Just last week President Obama told the United Nations General Assembly: “That so many of us are here today is a recognition that the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing. The security and stability of each nation and all peoples – our prosperity, our health, our safety – are in jeopardy. And the time we have to reverse this tide is running out.”
Mrs. Obama left two days earlier in order to have meeting time with IOC members. There’s nothing wrong with the President or the First Lady lobbying to the International Olympic Committee. Sure there are costs to hosting the Olympics, which have some Chicagoans opposed to the idea : “Take the Chicagoans for Rio, a group that is reportedly driving the organizers of the Chicago 2016 bid a little crazy. The Chicagoans for Rio website presents figures on the massive debt accumulated by host cities (Montreal took 30 years to pay off their debt from the ’76 Games) and useless construction (21 of the 22 structures from the recent Athens Olympics are presently going unused).”
No one can really predict whether the benefits of hosting the 2016 games will outweigh the costs, but if President Obama believes what he says that global warming is a near-term, imminent threat, couldn’t the First Couple have flown on one Air Force One together?
Let’s do a back-of-the-envelope calculation on the carbon footprint of taking two Air Force planes as opposed to one:
• Michelle Obama flew in on Air Force Two, a Boeing C-32 - a modified version of the 757-200.
• The fuel consumption of the Boeing is 3900 liters per hour, equivalent to about 1030.3831g/h. The cruising speed is Mach .8 = 272.23200 m / s = 609 mph
• Which is equivalent to 1030.3831 g/1h * 1h/609mi = 1.6919g/mi = .591 mpg
• Assuming both planes have to get back to the U.S. at some point, the trip to Copenhagen, two approximately 10 hr flight equals 10,304 gallons of fuel * 2 = 20,608 gallons.
• Jet fuel emits 21.1 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon.
• Using an additional plane emitted 434,726 pounds of carbon into the air.
Let’s compare this with a Cadillac Escalade – certainly not the green car of choice.
• The average car is driven 12,000 miles per year.
• An Escalade gets 14 miles per gallon so it uses 857 gallons of gasoline per year.
• An Escalade emits 16,797 pounds of carbon per year.
So, taking an additional plane to lobby for the Olympics to come to Chicago is equivalent to driving an Escalade for nearly 26 years. (434,726 lbs of Co2 / 16,797 lbs of Co2).
Environmental hypocrisy is nothing new to celebrities and politicians that make the push to go green. John Travolta often preaches about the catastrophic consequences global warming but has five private jets that he likes to fly for ‘business purposes’. Senator Harry Reid riding in a Chevrolet Suburban to attend a news conference on energy efficiency when a short walk from the Capitol to the Senate building would have sufficed. Google founder Sergey Brin greened the company’s headquarters but signed up for a Co2-spewing joyride in space.
There is certainly nothing wrong with energy efficiency and environmental conservation, but when celebrities and politicians lecture about doing your part, fear monger about global warming and lobby for a cap and trade bill that will make your electricity bills “necessarily skyrocket”, it is hypocritical and arrogant. There is also nothing wrong with people choosing the vehicles they like best, but it is insufferably elitist to punish soccer moms in the name of the environment while skipping the sacrifice yourself.
Drew Davidhizar contributed to this post.