Oh Rio, Rio, Hear Them Shout Across The Land...

So Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics. The winning bid went to Rio, and I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, because, as my friend Trung pointed out on his blog, there is no economic benefit to hosting the Olympics in your city. In fact, it may actually hurt a city economically along with bringing police repression.

But what does irk me are the wingnuts who are so against President Obama that they cheer over the lost bid. Yes, the assholes actually cheered over the loss. Despite the economic burden, hosting the games has always been considered a point of pride. This blatant stupidity prompted Rep. Alan Grayson to comment "Someone should remind them what team they're really on."

Well, it's certainly not the American team that the wingnuts are now playing for. In a recent article, Matt Osborne opined that conservatives are trying to delegitimatize President Obama with the ridiculous idea that Obama claims to be God:

This meme is a form of wishful thinking from the party of faith-based policy: if Obama is illegitimate in the eyes of God, then it is a Christian's duty to oppose him, no matter what he actually does. Thus questions of policy, like scientific studies, are no longer argued on their own merits, but on the sole merit of opposition to the evil president.

This delegitimating of a president -- and, by extension, his agenda -- explains the odd crowing reaction of Republicans to the failed Chicago Olympic bid. It is as if Obama has lost some sheen of idolatrous perfection and been "revealed" as a fraudulent prophet; but only a wingnut would ever think of a politician as a prophet.

So anyway, can't we all just say "Yay, Brazil!" They will be the first South American country to host the Olympics, and plus, this historic event gives me the perfect opportunity to play the best music video ever:

Duran Duran - Rio