The presence of Barack Obama's inflated ego in Copenhagen probably had as much to do with Chicago losing the Olympic bid as anything else.  He might have done better to send Sarah Palin. 

A lot of people I've encountered, including Glenn Beck had stated their opinion that Barack Obama would not have gone to Denmark to make the pitch for Chicago as the 2016 Olympic host city unless he knew that Chicago was guaranteed to win. This was a reasonable possibility, but I wasn't so sure. After all, corruption can generally reach only so far, and it had become obvious that the world was not lining up to worship at his altar even if he thinks he is an international rock star.

Chicago was the first city to be eliminated from the competition and for a man who seems to think that all he has to do is make a speech and everyone will fall into step with his wishes, it must be considered a major setback. As Rush Limbaugh said, this has to be the worst day of his administration. After all, if he can't persuade the Olympic Committee, to do what he wants, how can he persuade the Iranian mullahs to give up their nuclear ambitions?

There is an old piece of philosophy that I first encountered back around 1980 as part of a defense team working on a defamation lawsuit. One of the central characters in the case was famous for pontificating on things of all sorts, including his personal stature and that of his organization. Eventually he encountered legal problems and was accused along with some associates (and ultimately convicted) of criminal conduct, a former member of his group became one of our witnesses with our defense. This gentleman opined that the problem began when the leader started believing his own propaganda. It appears that the same may have happened here.

Obama appears to have had his path smoothed for him much of the way to his current position. While we don't know that he received preferential treatment during his college career, there is enough innuendo available to suggest seriously that he did. One pundit suggested that this record at Columbia was not good enough to get him into Harvard Law without help. They may be right. His career in Illinois politics was assisted with what would be called dirty tricks if he had been a Republican. The press fawned over him and failed to investigate or disclose important information during the 2008 presidential campaign. Many have continued to cover for his failure to disclose his personal records. Now, he is facing a number of major political dogfights and doesn't know how to handle them. But he acts as if he does, and that charisma he thinks he has really exists, and works with quite literally everyone.

But back to Copenhagen. Michelle Obama's speech about her origins in the Windy City, her father's illness, and so on, was irrelevant to the process. Ditto for her husband's abject begging for a chance to "welcome the world" into his neighborhood. This was not "Queen For A Day." It seemed pretty obvious that he simply wanted to be a guest of honor at games that he could walk to from his house. The subject matter should have been why Chicago was the best qualified; how the Committee could make itself look great by picking that city. It had nothing to do with the personal history and self-interests of a couple of political hacks. It called for diplomacy, and being a diplomat requires the ability to see outside yourself. A diplomat needs to address what will hook the other person and bring them on board. Speeches about yourself won't do it.

Perhaps the Committee knew in advance that the Obama cronies were hoping to make millions off of the games by selling their Chicago real estate at inflated prices. Perhaps they had heard about Chicago being the murder capital of the US, or about the recent killings by teenage gangs. Who knows? In the end, we might expect Jimmy Carter to crawl out from under a rock and blame international racism. But the most likely culprit is Obama, himself. Since Election Day has shown himself to be a failure on all fronts. He cannot obtain the cooperation of the world community, despite his platitudinous UN speeches. His negotiations with Iran have accomplished nothing. He is failing legislatively at home as the Democrat party fragments because of public pressure. He is failing economically as his ballyhooed stimulus package has done nothing. Who wants to hitch their wagon to a loser? Perhaps the Committee believes that he will tank our economy so badly that Chicago won't be able to afford playing host.

Meanwhile, after Obama flew his wife and Oprah to Copenhagen, he joined them a day later on a separate plane costing the country about ten million dollars. At every turn and with every dollar spent he becomes less and less popular. Fox News' Alistair Wanklin reported that the Committee delegates were all lining up to be photographed with Obama, but soon enough they turned their backs on him in the voting. It appears that he has become an impotent symbol; something to put a photograph of above your fireplace, but nothing bigger. Perhaps, he has become nothing more than a tourist attraction. Unfortunately, he may be an ambitious tourist attraction with a big mouth. It will take a lot to close that mouth and send him back to Chicago in disgrace.

During the latter stages of WWII when the Allies were closing in for the kill in Europe, Hitler was reported as saying that because Germany had lost, it had proved itself unworthy of him. To the last, he failed to take personal responsibility for what went wrong, for his own failings and his own inadequacies. We can expect to see the same here. Obama will find someone else to blame this failure on just as he has with all those past and will with those pending. Maybe he would have succeeded better by sending Sarah Palin to lobby for the Olympics. Of course, she might well have landed the Winter Games for Fairbanks instead of the Summer Games for Chicago. It would have been poetic justice.