When I was a child, my younger sister went through a phase where her opinions and desires opposed mine as a matter of principle. When cleaning the kitchen after dinner, if I wanted to wash then that’s the job she wanted. If I wanted to dry, that’s what she wanted more. I quickly learned to manipulate the situation by declaring that I wanted whatever job I didn’t, knowing that she would insist upon it. Somehow it seemed that made us both happy. Or maybe it just made me a pain-in-the-butt older sibling. I’ll leave that decision between my sister and her therapist. But either way, we were kids, and it was childish behavior.

I’ve certainly known some adults that have behaved that way as well, and I’m sure you have too. In a surprising bit of honesty, one even told me once, “I just don’t really know what the wrong answer is until I’ve heard your opinion.” But this is maybe the first time I’ve seen a group of significant size and influence adopt this oppositional strategy. A group deciding that what someone else does or wants is wrong simply because it’s what they want. Then they fight against that position, even when the result of that action is clearly not in their best interest.

I’m speaking, of course, about the hard line conservatives who have decided that Obama’s failure is more important than anything else, including the success of the country. They oppose what he wants as a matter of principle. Up until now, their opposition of healthcare reform, economic stimulus money, opening talks with hostile nations, war policy, etc. has been hard to pin as strictly oppositional. At some level, those are all legitimate policy debates which demand scrutiny. Also, because of the lack of any “control country” in the experiment it’s often difficult to judge the actual impact of decisions from either side.

But I think the recent Olympics debacle is pretty clear evidence of the conservative oppositional strategy. Mostly because we do know what it means to host the Olympics. We’ve done it before. We’ve seen the infrastructure investment, tourism dollars, ad revenues, and corporate investments that amount to billions of dollars flowing through the host country. And we’ve never lost money as the host country. Hosting the Olympics has not only been an economic boon, but a matter of national pride. I cannot recall a previous situation where there was not overwhelming support and national motivation for the USA to be home to the Olympic Games.

Yet this is where we found ourselves last week. On Friday, when Chicago was eliminated by the IOC as a potential host city, the conservative Weekly Standard cheered. Their web page (since changed) is below.

Yes, there were rationalizations for the opposition.

Obama is paying off his Chicago pals. This, despite the fact that the USOC chose Chicago on April, 14, 2007. This was back when Hillary was the presumptive Democratic candidate, so it would have been kind of a long shot for this whole scheme to be cooked up just for Barack to pay off his cronies.

Obama can’t afford to take his eye off all the other crises to lobby to the IOC. Really? I should hope that the leader of the free world is capable of a little multitasking. Otherwise we’re all pretty much screwed. Besides, while he was in Denmark, he met with Gen. McChrystal on Afghanistan. However does he cope?

The Olympics is a money pit and the USA can’t afford to host. Ummm… aside from that statement being in blatant opposition to the facts, aren’t you the same guys claiming Obama is doing this to make his friends rich? If this is such a money pit, why are people in Chicago going to be rolling in dough?

In the end, the rationalizations are all just that. I wish Chicago had not been our chosen host city only because this whole thing would have been less of a target then. I wonder if there would have been opposition if Denver was the proposed site and Obama had just kept his distance and let things run their course? I suspect not.

And in the ultimate act of cognitive dissonance, the group cheering that we were not chosen as the host country and should not have lobbied to be in the first place are now lambasting Obama for his failure to secure the games. Isn’t that a bit like rooting against your team and then crucifying the coach for losing?

There can be no doubt, this wasn’t about the Olympics. This was about Barack Obama and those who would seek to vilify anything and everything they can tie to the man. In this case, a point of national pride and economic value were sacrificed to satisfy conservative blood lust. They beat the man, and took the country down a notch in the process. This is a good thing, why?