Two takes on the Olympics

Why didn’t Chicago get the 2016 Olympics?

Chris Bowers: Because we’re corrupt, power-hungry, carbon-spewing, torturing, evil bastards and the IOC was right to spurn us.

Moe Lane: Because we’re not loud, obnoxious and vulgar enough and we failed make it clear that we couldn’t care less what the rest of the world thinks of us.

Discuss.

Flying Whale

Hey, someone gave a speech last night

So I sort of lied about no posts for a while, but I didn’t lie about no substantive posts, as this is merely a miniature link dump. The lefty blogosphere responded pretty positively to Obama’s healthcare speech to Congress last night, and Rep. Joe Wilson gave them a convenient punching bag to rile up the believers. There are any number of insightful posts I could link to, but I’ll limit myself to three.

First, Ezra Klein gives a positive, if sober, assessment of the speech. Second, two posts at Open Left offer opposing, if not directly contradictory, views: Daniel de Groot applauds Obama’s sweeping defense of liberalism, while unsurprisingly, David Sirota provides the loudest dissenting voice from the left, with the rather biting post title “Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel’s Health Care Speech.”

The difference? Sirota is refusing to resign himself to Obama’s centrism. The rest of the liberal blogosphere appears to have done just that, at least for now. Ultimately, I’m not sure which attitude is more productive.

Flying Whale