Olympic Games Winter Wrap-Up

Hey, looky, the national basketball typist for the Chicago Times has a run-down on the "movement."

In sports, the IOC is like SPECTRE in the James Bond novels, a third force emerging between East and West. It’s so much a power unto itself that the personal intervention of President Barack Obama, whose international popularity was thought to make Chicago a slam-dunk to host the 2016 games, couldn’t even get the city out of the preliminary round.

The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Hersh later wrote that it was over before it started, the IOC’s way of embarrassing the U.S. Olympic Committee for refusing to give up a larger share of TV money to poorer member nations.

Obama walked unknowingly into a hard-nosed financial negotiation between the new worldwide leader in capitalism and its U.S. representative, which had taught it the game.

Survival of the fittest, it’s a bitch.