The President fails

After a trip to Denmark, two planes and all that jet fuel, who knows how many greased palms both in Chicago and around the world, the president failed to bring the Olympics of 2016 home.

About half the people in the City will be delighted having campaigned for Rio. Maybe now some of those $ billions can be used to update crumbling schools. Maybe the City can get some of the money it "spent" back?

Either way, the failure was spectacular, with Chicago being the first city eliminated from the vote for the 2016 host city. And the failure is being placed firmly at the feet of the President. Even the BBC has already reported the following:

"The shock of Chicago's elimination was greater for the fact that it came in the first round. And greater for the fact that President Obama had taken valuable hours from his packed and tense political schedule to travel to Copenhagen. His legendary powers of persuasion will be said to have failed him, though in reality it will be Chicago's bid that failed him. Nonetheless, this is a moment which allows the president's detractors to allege waning prestige on the part of his presidency. And it will raise questions about the political advice that he is receiving."

OK - so the BBC couldn't resist the bias, but the result is the same. It's going to be interesting to see how this is spun over the next few days. Of course it helps that the announcement came on a Friday!!!