IS THIS EMBARRASSING, OR WHAT? - AT 7:54 A.M. ET  - I guess the big news of the day, in Chicago at least, is that President Obama will go to Copenhagen Thursday to pitch Chicago for the 2016 Olympics.  We assume, of course, that by then Chicago will have done something about the shooting gallery that exists around many of its schools, specifically schools in the very part of the city where our (absolutely accomplished) first lady grew up.  The Chicago Examiner puts it this way:

Curiously, Obama had different priorities on Sept. 17 when he said First Lady Michelle Obama would go to Copenhagen in his stead: "I would make the case in Copenhagen personally, if I weren't so firmly committed to making real the promise of quality affordable health care for every American." What has changed since Sept. 17? Why is the president now taking it upon himself to persuade the International Olympic Committee to award an event with global prestige and worth untold billions of dollars to a city whose governing establishment virtually defines political corruption?

And, when enterprising journalists crunched the numbers...

Reasonable people familiar with Chicago history know there must be more to this story than mere civic pride. A look at the finances of the bid ought to scare the dickens out of hard-pressed taxpayers everywhere. Chicago's proposed operating budget totals $3.8 billion, but, as Crain's Chicago Business pointed out in a scathing editorial, the plan only includes insurance for $1.1 billion. There's nothing in the budget to cover the possibility that private sector donors won't contribute the $1 billion needed to construct an Olympic Village. And what about cost overruns, which in Chicago, Crain's notes, have a lurid history of "coming in at two or three times estimates." Federal stimulus funds perhaps? That would be the Chicago way.

COMMENT:  If Chicago wins, and The One has a way of charming international organizations, get set to open your wallets.  You'll be paying the tab, but Oprah will get a chance to do her show from the pole-vaulting pit.

September 29,  2009