How Does the World See Obama's Olympic Failure?

Let's ask Tim Reid of the London Times:

There has been a growing narrative taking hold about Barack Obama’s presidency in recent weeks: that he is loved by many, but feared by none; that he is full of lofty vision, but is actually achieving nothing with his grandiloquence.

Chicago’s dismal showing today, after Mr Obama’s personal, impassioned last-minute pitch, is a stunning humiliation for this President. It cannot be emphasised enough how this will feed the perception that on the world stage he looks good — but carries no heft.

It was only the Olympic Games, the White House will argue — not a high-stakes diplomatic gamble with North Korea. It is always worthwhile when Mr Obama sells America to the rest of the world, David Axelrod, his chief political adviser, said today. But that argument will fall on deaf ears in the US. Americans want their presidents to be winners.

Mr Obama was greeted — as usual — like a rock star by the IOC delegates in Copenhagen — then humiliated by them. Perception is reality. A narrow defeat for Chicago would have been acceptable — but the sheer scale of the defeat was a bombshell, and is a major blow for Mr Obama at a time when questions are being asked about his style of governance.

In the long run there's little question that the loss of the Olympic Games will be a net plus for Chicago. They couldn't possibly afford to put them on, and given the amount of graft and corruption already at work in that city, you can just imagine what would happen when tens of millions of dollars in sponsorships started showing up. It was be a festival of greed.

Obama may be a Chicago native (sort of, if you ignore Kenya, Indonesia and Hawaii), but he is not the mayor of Chicago or the governor of Illinois. The president had no business getting involved in the Olympic negotiations. No president has done so before.

And finally, no president ever shows up on a world stage like that unless the outcome has already been decided. His lack of experience in such things was telling. He set himself up for an epic fail...and got it.