One of the great things about being a columnist is that just when I get ready to talk about what I want to talk about, real life intervenes.
The Pelosiraptor, aka Nancy Pelosi, has done it again. She has opened her bronze medal mouth and shoved her entire number of toes she possesses past her paleolithic esophagus.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/01/pelosi.olympics/index.html
Going to Syria as Prime Minister of the United States, forgetting that we do not have one, was bad enough. Now she wants to do her part to anger the entire world in the exact same manner that she accuses President Bush. She wants him to unilaterally insult China, knowing that when the inevitable blowback occurs, she can just blame him.
Even liberals should be embarrassed by this woman.
She may not like being compared to Newt Gingrich, but she is making the same mistake he made. We have only one President. She is not it. Politics should stop at the waters edge.
More importantly, politics should be confined to politics itself, and politics alone.
My cousin, who I will simply refer to as “the little genius,” had a crisis of conscience in 2004. His two heroes were President George W. Bush and Bruce Springsteen. He was wondering if he should give away his albums of the Boss. I told him not to mix music and politics. He should not seek political advice from Springsteen or music advice from the Dub. He still likes them both.
I personally do not mix politics and football. Former Denver Broncos Quarterback John Elway is a staunch republican who actively campaigns for republicans. I want to like him. I can’t. To me he will always be a Bronco. A dear friend of mine is a Bronco fan and a liberal. He is not thrilled about Elway’s politics, but he will always love Elway. Elway is a Bronco.
Nancy Pelosi, who worships at the altar of diplomacy based on surrender, is recommending that President Bush violate diplomatic rules of etiquette, and surrender the best quality he has…his graciousness.
Nancy Pelosi believes that the Chinese have a horrible record on human rights. Evidence would support this. She also feels that as a protest measure, President Bush should, as a show of solidarity with Chinese dissidents, boycott the opening ceremonies in Beijing.
Thankfully by 2010 Nancy Pelosi will, lord willing, be a trivia answer to “where are they now?” has beens. My objections to her suggestion is not because she is a liberal. It is because the idea is imbecilic.
For the sake of full disclosure, I could care less about the Olympics. I hate feeling unpatriotic, but they are so colossally boring. I still remember laughing when David Letterman called up NBC executives like Bob Costas and bullied them into ordering the Olympics Triplecast because somebody had to purchase it. Also, because my column must take time to offend random people that have never bothered me, I will say that I do not see how anybody can watch something as senseless as curling. Snowboarding is an excuse to do drugs. The only way the Olympics could be more boring would be if they added golf. If they already have, then they are worse than I thought.
Don’t get me wrong. I still want America to win the most medals. I want us to be the best in everything. We won the Cold War and brought down the Berlin Wall due to a combination of Ronald Reagan and the 1980 Men’s Olympic Ice Hockey team. It enrages me to this day that we lost to the Iranians in soccer. We should have brought Ayatollah Khomeini back from the dead just to kill him again.
So yes, we had better win the most medals, especially if that gets me free fruit pies at McDonalds if I have the right pieces. Just don’t make me watch the games.
One other disclosure I want to make is that I truly believe that human rights absolutely should not be the goal of foreign policy. The goal of foreign policy is pure selfishness. It is to advance, in the case of America, U.S. interests. If we end up helping others by default, than that is fine. Everything we do is to help us. Every other nation is the same, only we get criticized for rational self interest.
Nevertheless, even if human rights was not a colossal flaw in thinking, the Olympics are not the time and place.
While the Pelosiraptor made it clear that she only wants a boycott of the opening ceremonies, and not the Olympics themselves, she is still wrong.
The Olympics are about global unity. They are about every nation having their place on the world stage. The Olympics are where poorer nations like Kenya can strut their stuff, and prove that wealth and power can be defeated with desire when the playing field is level. At the Olympics, the playing field is level.
Yes, some of the nations are hopped up worse than a hippie at Woodstock, and yes, some nations, including ours, shame the spirit of the games by using professionals instead of amateurs, but for the most part, every nation has a shot.
Many nations also gets their time in the spotlight as hosts. To snub the host is wrong. The 1980 and 1984 Olympics had some tarnish due to the Cold War, when Russia and the USA engaged in brinksmanship in the form of boycotts. I wanted to defeat the Russians in the Cold War. I also wanted to see them at the Olympics, their best against ours. Phyrric victories are just that. Lake Placid meant something because we beat the very best.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who normally walks on water and turns it into wine, may boycott the opening ceremonies. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the greatest European leader today not named Sarkozy, may boycott the games themselves.
People have asked me if I ever think conservatives are wrong. It is rare, but yes, they are wrong.
We are not China. We seem to have selective outrage. Liberals are up in arms over China, yet seem to be painstakingly silent about Iraq, Iran and Syria.
You remember Syria? The Pelosiraptor put on a burkha to sip tea with the dumbest opthamologist on the planet, Bashar Assad.
Anyway, rather than beat the point into the ground, which is my usual modus operandi, I will simply restate the obvious.
Water is wet, the sun rises in the East, and Nancuy Pelosi is wrong, although in fairness, only when she speaks.
The Olympics may be boring, but many people consider them significant. They should not be tarnished just because one left wing crusader keeps thinking that the few thousand people that live in her cancerous district represent normal Earthlings, much less the entire mainstream of America.
There will be no Olympic Crackdown. There will be politeness. After all, we will be hosting again soon enough.
eric