Debbie Schlussel: About the Olympics: What's Wrong with Cheering for America?
Longtime readers know what I think of the Olympic Games, even though I represented an Olympic Silver Medalist diver at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta (and got him a centerfold spread in Sports Illustrated). In case you aren't familiar with my Olympic views, read my three part series on the 2002 Olympics, which applies to them all:
* "What's So Great About the Olympics? Nothing": Part I
* Part II
* Part III
Still, while I will mostly ignore the silly hype over meaningless games (where the athletes are now well-funded pros and often not really from the country which they're representing), I'm always bothered by the fact that NBC goes out of its way not to appear pro-American. Just what do they think the "N" in NBC stands for? And which "Nation" in national is it? In case they forgot--which during the Olympics is very clear--USA Today "Sports on TV" columnist Michael Hiestand has some advice for them:
Don't fear lapel flag pins:NBC has been criticized for focusing too much on U.S. athletes. Hello? NBC is less of a homer on the Games than most TV networks around the world. And since you're probably not betting on the breaststrokes, or you're not in a gymnastics fantasy league, or wonder how you score in diving anyway, there's nothing wrong with giving viewers a little old-fashioned nationalism.
With the Olympics, after all, it's not as if we're going to end up invading anybody.
And if we were going to invade someone, so what? And trust me, if the Yasser-Arafat-T-Shirt-Wearing Palestinian Olympic team wins any medals (it won't), Al-Jazeera will be cheering ad nauseam for that latest reward for murdering the entire Israeli Olympic team in 1972.
Oh, and by the way, for all you Mitt Romney supporters, I guess you forgot this offensive BS, when he headed the 2002 Olympic Games, on U.S. soil, just months after 9/11:
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.
He told that to a foreign newspaper, the UK's Guardian, in 2002, just before the Olympics.
Mitt Happens. And sadly, the Olympics do, too.
Posted by Debbie on August 8, 2008 01:21 PM to Debbie Schlussel