My crystal ball was completely accurate about the IOC dissing Obama

On September 28, 2009, I wrote this:

I think the world has sized Obama up and concluded that he’s weak, very weak.  The Olympics are a good example of this.  One theory has it that Chicago is in, and that the price for that is Obama’s appearance before the Olympic Committee.  In other words, Obama got bossed around both by Chicago and by the Olympic Committee.  He’s sort of weak in that scenario, but he still gets what he wants.

But another theory (mine, to be precise) is that the matter is still up in the air, that Obama is going to the Olympic Committee as a true supplicant, and that the OC still has the power to turn him down.  With a strong president, this situation would never have arisen.  First off, a strong president wouldn’t have gone begging for an Olympic game.  Second, of course, the OC would never dream of sayin no.  But here, how tempting to have the President of the United States on his knees before you, and have the power to say “no.”

I was prescient.  Not only did Chicago not make the cut, it was the first city eliminated:

In a stunning development, Chicago was the first city eliminated on Friday in IOC voting to be host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics…

Not to be smug, but some of us saw this coming.  And in fact, I’m not smug, because this is a deeply depressing sign of the actual esteem in which the most beloved president in the world (outside of the US) is held.  Voters were so stupid.  They thought that Europeans wanted us to have Obama because it would be good for the US.  Europeans and the rest of the world wanted us to have Obama because it would be bad for the US.  In the short term, the rest of the world is thrilled to see an America with its wings clipped.  In the long term, of course, given the America was the glue that held most Western civilization together, I wonder how happy they’re going to be.