Roland Martin, a columnist for CNN, gets his faketriotism on,
I don’t care if Republicans want to rip President Obama over going to Copenhagen, Denmark, to pitch for the games. This isn’t about politics. It’s not about ideology. This is about America. OUR pride. Our chance to shine. Our loss of the games.
So, to all the critics happy about us losing the 2016 games, turn in your flag lapel pins and stop boasting of being so patriotic. When an American city loses, like New York did in the the last go-round, we all lose. And all you critics are on the same level as the America haters all across the world.
You should be shouted down for not backing your own country. The next time any of you bang out a press release about “Buy American” or “Support our troops,” remember this moment when your cynical, callous and small-minded brains happily rejoiced when America lost the 2016 Olympic Games.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Roland Martin.
I can understand why CNN adds the disclaimer – I wouldn’t want to have to bear sole responsibility for this nonsense either.
Martin is reiterating a meme that is growing firmly implanted in the rhetoric of the Left: If you laugh at Obama for losing the Olympics, then you really just hate America and are unpatriotic. This is, of course, ridiculous nonsense.
First of all, I want to say this – “America” didn’t lose anything. Obama lost face by investing his own imaginary personal popularity and magnetism into trying to strong-arm the IOC into giving the games to Chicago, when apparently they already had no such intention of doing so, and in fact, Chicago hadn’t had a serious hope of getting the games for months.
Don’t make the false equation of “Obama” with “America.” The two are not the same. Obama is not America. He’s merely an American President who rode into office on a wave of emotionalistic hullabaloo, with a heaping helping of ACORN-related vote fraud to boot. Many of those who were on an emotional high when voting for him have since come to realise that he was lying to them, and resent him for it. I repeat, Obama is not America.
Further, what did “America” really lose? The chance to host an expensive bauble that always ends up losing money for the host country and especially the host city? One which, as of late, has been turning into an increasingly anti-American spectacle anywise? Why should we pay to host a bunch of foreigners to come to our country and tell us how evil we are? If we wanted to hear about how evil America is, we’d just send President Obama overseas on another apology tour.
Which is another reason why the “Obama = America” meme fails so badly. You can’t call somebody “unpatriotic” for not supporting Obama’s foreign policy disasters overseas when the President’s foreign policy is predicated on the need to “atone” for how doggone bad America is in the first place. Obama himself thinks America is evil – he thinks we’re evil because we’re capitalist, because we fight terrorism, and because we (until recently) didn’t coddle rogue regimes nearly as much as he’d like for us to have. Obama doesn’t automatically become “patriotic” just because he’s the President, and opposition to his foolish and childish policies doesn’t render one “unpatriotic.” In fact, as with so much else, when Obama loses, America wins.
Further, when Martin says,
“The next time any of you bang out a press release about “Buy American” or “Support our troops,” remember this moment when your cynical, callous and small-minded brains happily rejoiced when America lost the 2016 Olympic Games.”
He shows just how shallow those who are supporting Obama in this fiasco really are. “Support our troops.” If only the President did that. But instead, while America is in the middle of trying to deal with a number of important questions, including the fact that we’re apparently losing the Afghanistan War that had previously been the “good” war that we were winning, Obama decides to waste millions (literally) of taxpayer dollars flying himself and his wife over to Copenhagen to lobby for the Olympics bauble. If Obama and his supporters want to be taken seriously as “patriotic,” how about they stop kowtowing to Europeans, and start focusing on issues that actually mean something for America’s future? And if the lefties want to talk about supporting the troops, then they should try giving General McChrystal the troops and material support he needs to get the job done in Afghanistan. Or at least try meeting with General McChrystal more than once every nine months.
Let’s face it – this Olympics thing had nothing to do with “America.” It was all about President Obama flexing his popularity muscles to show everyone how much the rest of the world just loves and adores him. And he found out that they really don’t. He found out that while they may agree that he’s not the evil Bushitler crazy cowboy unilateralist, all the same, they’re not exactly starstruck by his all-thatness. The Copenhagen visit was merely an outlet for Obama’s voluminous narcissism – and he was struck across the face with the mackerel of reality.
It was also an attempt to swing some payback towards the corrupt Chicago Democrat machine. They gave Obama his rise to power, and the Olympics – which always come with abundant opportunities for graft, kickbacks, and the chance to skim off the top – was the way to give a little back to the community of union thugs, mafia members, and Democrat Party hacks who have made Chicago the harmonious, idyllic utopia we see today. This Olympics bid wasn’t about “America,” it was about lining the pockets of those who took Obama from being just one community organising race-agitator among many, and set him on the path to the Presidency. In a sense, it was private, opportunistic corruption writ large – there was nothing “good for the country” about it.
So please, lefties, spare us the hypocritical self-righteous huff-and-puffery about our being “unpatriotic.” Maybe when you and the President start pursuing a truly pro-American foreign policy, when you and the President get serious about winning the war in Afghanistan, when you and the President get serious about not damaging the prestige and credibility of America’s treaty commitments to our allies overseas, maybe you’ll be taken seriously. Until then, don’t waste our time blathering at us about the Olympics.
