Republicans Doing Backflips: It’s Rio

Ho man, talk about a double play. Republicans are beside themselves with glee today as the IOC not only eliminated Chicago as the 2016 Olympics Games venue in the first round of voting, but then went on to select Rio de Janeiro.

Beside themselves.

Here we had Barack Obama make a personal effort to support his hometown and his country to bring the Olympics to the United States once more while Republicans complained that he was doing this when his time could be better spent watching the Democrats harpoon healthcare reform in the Senate.

And it was all for naught.

But more to the point, now there is adequate reason for them to get on a jet in 2016 and fly to Rio.

First, for some of them, perhaps it might be a good move because of the extradition laws between the US and Brazil. But for the rest of them, there is that curious combination of genes that produces what is perhaps the most exotic-looking females of the species that is endemic to Brazil in general, but to Rio in particular.

Mark Sanders started a trend. Now just wait until Republicans line up for those expensive Olympics packages that include full introductions to a Carioca of their choice.

Do Republicans Have An Ulterior Motive for Attacking Obama on Olympics Bid?

I just have to wonder which of the following is true:

Are Republicans piling on in their criticism of Barack Obama’s personal appearance in Copenhagen this week at the 13th Olympic Congress because they just want to berate Obama over any old thing that he does? Or do Republicans have an ulterior motive for not wanting the 2016 Olympics games in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America?

Really, it has to be one or the other.

What harm is it, I ask, that Barack Obama invest some of the political capital that he has with the international scene and take advantage of some of the international goodwill that is currently being rained upon him, by helping to bring the Olympics to his home country?

Isn’t that one of his jobs? To help stimulate the American economy?

Ask anyone. Getting the Olympics to come to your area, let alone your country, is a huge economic advantage to the country that brings the Olympic torch to its designated Olympics stadium.

Everyone benefits.

I have friends that made a killing turning over their house to international visitors when the Olympics were held in LA in 1984. The whole area benefits in construction projects, employment and infrastructure improvements.

So really, it just couldn’t be that Republicans are actually against the President of the United States helping out the USOOC to bring the Olympics here. That would be a travesty. Republicans are after all, fair-minded and pro-business.

So what is it?

I had an idea today, after hearing which cities were in the final four:

Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo, and Rio De Janeiro.

Now Tokyo is clearly overplaying their hand. It hosted the Olympics before in 1964, a mere 45 years ago. Los Angeles hosted the Olympics in 1932, ant it took them another 52 years to get it back again in 1984.

Madrid has its own problems. London will be the site of the 2012 Olympic Games, and the 2014 Winter Olympic Games will be held in Sochi, Russia. A Madrid win would mean that the Olympics are held in Europe for three times in a row, something that is very uncommon in Olympics history.

That cuts the field down to just two, with Rio de Janeiro at loggerheads with the Windy City.

Can it be, then, that the only reason Republicans don’t want the Olympic Games to come to America, to come to Chicago, is that they want them to go to Rio?

If so, why Rio?

Oh. Ohhhhhh…..

It’s that Governor Sanford thing, isn’t it?

Republican Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford got himself a real South American hottie, didn’t he? In Buenos Aires.

But wait, Buenos Aires isn’t Rio, is it?

Oh. Ohhhhh…

Rio isn’t Buenos Aires.