Critics: Obama's Olympic Pitch a Fool's Errand

The failure of President Obama's last-ditch pitch to win the 2016 Summer Olympics for Chicago will open him up to ridicule, political insiders say. His critics are saying he went on a fool's errand with relatively little chance of success and that the episode showed some of Obama's worst traits, such as impetuousness, a willingness to grandstand, and an inflated sense of his own importance.

[See pictures of the Obamas in Copenhagen.]

Obama and his wife, Michelle, flew to Copenhagen to seek the designation for their hometown, but Olympic officials eliminated Chicago in their first round of voting this morning and chose Rio de Janeiro. The president had told the International Olympic Committee hours before the vote that if Chicago was chosen, "then I promise you this: The City of Chicago and the United States of America will make the world proud."

Mrs. Obama, a lifelong Chicagoan, was more emotional and personal. She told the committee about how, as a girl, she watched televised coverage of the Olympics and cheered the athletes while sitting on her father's lap. "Chicago's vision for the Olympic and Paralympic movement is about so much more than what we can offer the games," she said. "It's about what the games can offer all of us—it's about inspiring this generation and building a lasting legacy for the next." 

Obama's conservative critics have been saying that the last-minute attempt was unwise and that Obama had plenty of other, more urgent problems to work on, including the economy, the war in Afghanistan, and pending legislation on healthcare.

But administration officials argued that it was worth a try. Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff and a former U.S. representative from Chicago, told ABC News last night that while Obama was traveling on Air Force One to and from Copenhagen, he would continue to work long distance on the nation's problems. Emanuel said that even if the odds were against Chicago, the president wanted to make the effort.

After Chicago was eliminated today, senior White House adviser David Axelrod, also from Chicago, told MSNBC that the loss of the games was a "disappointment" but that Obama had no regrets about making the trip. "This president is going to go anywhere he can to promote this country," Axelrod said. 

The drumbeat of ridicule started even before Obama left for Copenhagen. "Now he's hoping this last-minute trip will help win support for the Chicago Olympics in 2016," conservative TV talk-show host Sean Hannity said Wednesday. "But with the Iranian nuclear crisis, the war in Afghanistan, the debate over healthcare reform raging in Washington, so why is the president so concerned about bringing the Olympics to his hometown?"

Hannity went on to introduce Michelle Malkin, another conservative commentator, who said it was "political payback" to help Obama's political "cronies" in Chicago, including Mayor Richard Daley.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters prior to the trip that Obama needs to "establish some priorities . . . . The president can't make everything a No. 1 priority, because the end result will be that there is no priority. Nothing is a priority because everything is a priority."

• See photos of the Obamas abroad.
• See photos of Obama behind the scenes.