Fred Barnes has put himself in the running for the 2009 Hand-Chafing Award with his latest column on Obama’s failure to single-handedly obtain the 2016 Olympics for the city of Chicago. He starts by declaring that holding the Olympics isn’t in the national interest. He doesn’t explain why, but given our job-loss situation, he really ought to. This country needs jobs, and we’ll take them any way we can find them.
Then Barnes asserts that the president should never ask for anything on the international stage unless he is already assured that his wishes will be fulfilled. That’s kind of like telling Derek Jeter that he shouldn’t step into the batter’s box unless he knows that he’s going to get a hit.
Somehow Barnes thinks that a failure to persuade the IOC to do his bidding means that Obama lacks the skills to get anyone else to cooperate in international affairs.
Finally, Barnes wants the press to draw all these same conclusions or else they will prove they’re just in love with the president and unwilling to criticize him.
Let me ask you something. If it is this easy to get paid a good salary on the right, shouldn’t I just switch teams?
