The Chicago-style politics taught by generations of corrupt connivers like Richard Daley and warmly embraced by enthusiastic students like Jack Ryan and Barack Obama emphasized that vote-stealing, vote-trading, a controlled press and, most of all, money, could surmount any obstacle represented by...say, fairness or true democracy.
And so when it was time to pick for Chicago that sweet Olympic plum, Barack Obama figured he knew exactly how to seal the deal. True, the International Olympic Committee wasn't the Windy City and so he didn't have control of the voting process itself. But Obama did have the friendly press, the Olympic-sized ego, a star-studded entourage... and he did have the money.
But what Obama didn't figure on was the bizarre possibility that the members of the IOC wouldn't be swayed by these things. Even the cash.
"If we had thought about how to make a lot of money we would have chosen Chicago," IOC president Jacques Rogge said yesterday. "Money is not what drives IOC members when it comes to choosing a host city."
Say what? Principles?
Barack Obama was probably more startled to hear that than he was the news that Chicago was the first city eliminated by the IOC. After all, singular setbacks can be overcome by the same old tricks. But if this "principle thing" starts getting around, politics as Obama knows them are dead and gone.
