Going down to Rio

I’ve often wished I was blessed with the gift of oratory so I could grab hearts and minds with great speeches, carve up debates with mots justes and keep students awake for more than ten minutes in my lectures. My powers are fairly pedestrian, unlike Barack Obama. But I tell you what …

You can definitely have too much of a good thing. I listened to Obama trying to win the Olympics for Chicago and couldn’t escape feeling that putting on a torrent of high flown verbiage everytime you have an audience can get very old very quickly.

This time it sounded well out of place, a little demeaning even. Going all the way to Copenhagen to say I’m the president, give my hometown the Games. It felt like he was heading for a fall and he was.

I’m glad Rio won, but I wish Obama had stayed out of it. Things are tricky enough for the guy at home without making himself a hostage to fortune in the carved up jungle that is IOC decision making.

Worse, the rapidly gathering campaign to Carterise the man gets another boost.  I may not share Obama’s gift of the gab, but we may have something in common: a need to know when to shut up.