KARMA

Olympic Loss Delivers Daley Comeuppance On A Plate

By Elizabeth C.

SPECULATING WHY CHICAGO LOST ITS OLYMPIC BID WAS THE DOMINANT SPORT FRIDAY, but it's too soon to know the real reasons.

Theories range from racism, anti-Americanism, the IOC's testy relationship with the United States Olympic Committee, the hubrus of Chicago's Gang of Three, the "savagery" of a Chicago student's murder, to Rio's superior campaign.

All sound plausible but I'll wait for the first-hand reports.

What's more obvious is the joy that a presumed 47 percent of Chicagoans get from the defeat.

"Greed denied. Hubris deflated. I'm glad we lost,'' Chuck K. writes at Chicagobusiness.com. "It brought us down a few notches and made us realize the world looks a lot differently at us than we perceive ourselves. I for one am sick of well-connected insiders in Chicago who profit at the expense of Cook County taxpayers."

The divide has embroiled Chicago web comment boards, with pro Olympic supporters dissing the anti as "negative nabobs." Some even suggested that opponents were really circumcision-obsessed anti-Obamaites, a logic that at least to my mind FAILS.

Even before the vote, WGN's Garry Meier on Thursday accurately connected the venom to Daley backlash. Finally, voters are outraged at Daley's costly clout, strong-armed tactics, and shady deals that enrich friends and political supporters.

"Do you not know that Chicago is not a democracy,'' wrote ejhickey at the Chicago Tribune. "Here power is handed from father to son. The closest model is North Korea."

"Blame it on Daley and his arrogance,'' wrote fcs25. "The IOC saw through King Daley's fascade. (sic) It is time Daley gets back to reality and focuses (sic) on selling the next Chicago asset to the highest bidder."

In what was surely the most ironic of reactions, Australia IOC member Kevan Gosper said of the city's first-round loss, "The whole thing doesn't make sense other there has been a stupid bloc vote." Which sounds an awful lot like the power displayed by Daley when the Chicago City Council voted 49-0 making city residents responsible for Olympic cost overruns.

Many viewed the games as Daley's last chance at staving off financial disaster for Chicago, in part caused by an entrenched system of clout that inflates the cost of government business.

"Without this pot of gold, there aren't many sources of revenue left to continue to fund his minions and cover up past failures,'' commented Lview G. on Chicagobusiness.com.

For seething residents sick of being overtaxed and overticketed, the loss was a welcome wrench toss in the political machine.

"For all the people that will pin this on Obama, hear this from a Chicagoan,'' wrote Frank Chow on his blog. " This was Mayor Daley's Olympics. The Daleympics was his last attempt to distract Chicago from his corruption, the parking meters, the violence and his mishandling of the government."

Some of us are gleeful that his tactic didn't work.