December 14, 2006, - 4:07 pm
QUICK QUIZ: Which ’08 Presidential Hopeful Said This . . .
By Debbie Schlussel
. . . About the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games, for which we paid over $300 million in U.S. tax money for security?:
Around the world it was like, ‘Boy, those Americans, always beating their chests.’ This is not our time to talk about how great America is. It’s not designed to be a patriotic American display.
I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t Hillary Clinton. Not Barack Hussein Obama. Not even Al Gore. And not a Democrat, at all.
Here’s another hint: Mitt Happens. And he uttered these words–attacking his fellow Americans–to the Guardian UK, a foreign newspaper, in 2002.
Yup, Mitt Romney, who wants our votes for President, made that anti-American statement about the Olympics, a statement that sounds like it could have come from Hillary’s mouth or Susan Sarandon’s. Or any America hater’s mouth.
And by the way, Romney–who headed up the organizing committee for the 2002 Salt Lake Games–refused to have an Olympic memorial ceremony for the slain Israeli athletes who were murdered at the Munich Games in 1972. But he managed to find $28 million to waste on the opening for the opening ceremonies of the Games. And he wasted millions more on a stupid choreographed memorial to Olympian Florence Griffith-Joyner (Flo-Jo), whose death–unlike that of the Munich Israelis–had nothing to do with the Olympics.
From my February 12, 2002 column:
Our tax-money coupled with exorbitant ticket prices will fund things like the $2 million twisted glass Olympic cauldron and a $291 million system to gather competition results for the media and fans. IBM, a past Olympic sponsor, decided it wasn’t worth paying for this time around, so now we get to be the lucky “investors,” along with Gateway computers which donated $20 million worth of cable.
Millions will also be spent wining and dining sponsors’ bigwig executives–money that could be better used to offset our “contributions”–you know, the $315 million security allocation the Congress granted the Olympics. President Bush, who attended Harvard Business School with 2002 Winter Games chief Mitt Romney, supports that allocation. Romney’s haphazard spending is not the fiscal conservatism and responsibility he preached in his 1994 run for the U.S. Senate against Ted Kennedy.
Certainly security is more important since September 11th. But why should we Americans–not Olympic sponsors and the well-paid US Olympic Committee–pay for it, especially when Romney won’t scale down Olympic spending, including the $28 million opening ceremony and an exorbitant, commissioned Alvin Ailey choreographed dance tribute to the late Florence Griffith Joyner? There isn’t even a bidding process to scale down costs. More money was blown on his choice of sand “legacy bricks” that disintegrated in cold weather and twice building the Utah Olympic Oval after screw-ups. It’s this waste of our money that led to the brisk sale of 2,500 “Mitt Happens” pins in Salt Lake. . . .
Romney claims the Games may break even. Maybe, for him and other Olympic bigwigs. For the rest of us, it’s a total bust.
And a Romney Presidency will be a total bust, too. He’s not a conservative. Just a phony who badly wants to be Prez and will say anything to get there.
Yup, Mitt Happens. But he won’t happen to get my vote. American chest-beating and talking about how great America is, is never off-limits or inappropriate.
Anyone who thinks so is off-limits and inappropriate as our Commander-in-Chief.
**** UPDATE: More Mitt Happens–Check out RomneyIsALiberal.com. ****
Tags: 2002 Winter Games, Al Gore, Alvin Ailey, America, Barack Hussein Obama, Bush, Congress, Debbie Schlussel, Florence Griffith Joyner, foreign newspaper, Harvard Business School, Hillary Clinton, IBM, Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, Munich, Olympic, President, Salt Lake, Susan Sarandon, Ted Kennedy, the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games, the Guardian UK, the Munich Games, the Olympics, United States, United States Senate, US Olympic Committee, USD, Utah, White House, Winter Games chief
I do not vote for people who change their mind because they want to be elected. They are qualified in my book as hypocrites and liars.
I do not vote for people who are so full of themselves, they run for office for the only purpose of being more powerful.
I do not vote for the butt-kissers, the hypocrites, the liars, the inexperienced, the weak, the Liberals-Socialists-Communists-Democrats, the America-haters and the traitors.
I vote for the opposite of all of the above. Plus, my candidate has to be a strong Conservative on all issues.
Is there any Conservative in the room?
Independent Conservative on December 14, 2006 at 5:06 pm