The Chicago games

President Obama plans to join the first lady in Copenhagen, Denmark, this week, lobbying members of the International Olympic Committee in support of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Games.

The president will leave Washington on Thursday; the committee is expected to choose between would-be host cities Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro on Friday. That won't leave a lot of time for one-on-one persuasion.

Some have criticized the president for taking time away from important business in the capital, and over the expense of the trip. That's a bit silly.

The Olympics have a stature beyond the parochial, and a president is first of all a politician. Barring some crisis, for the president to miss an easy opportunity to get his picture taken promoting his adopted hometown would be the equivalent of failing to back the Bears in the Super Bowl.

Furthermore, given the amount of profligate spending and regulatory overkill Mr. Obama has so far managed to promote during his every waking moment in Washington, conservatives should be happily signing up to fund extended presidential junkets to Tasmania, Tierra del Fuego, or anywhere else the Obamas are willing to go.

A better question is whether being chosen to host an Olympics is really such a great deal for taxpayers in a city like Chicago.

Despite all the usual talk about "prestige," support for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games has dwindled substantially among residents of the Windy City, according to a recent Chicago Tribune/WGN poll, with 45 percent opposed and only 47 percent now in favor.

And residents increasingly and overwhelmingly oppose using tax dollars to cover any financial shortfalls for the Games, as Mayor Richard Daley has proposed. A whopping 84 percent disapprove such use of public money.

In a city already upset over the privatization of parking meters and worried about further cutbacks in government services during a recession, respondents who spoke to Tribune reporters expressed concerns about the economy, the cost of hosting the Games, and traffic congestion.

"I'd hazard a guess that Chicagoans, if their bid is successful, will ... grumble over the next seven years about the cost, the traffic, the interruptions," predicts Katie Connolly in the Sept. 28 Newsweek, detailing the mixed blessings the Olympics brought to Sydney, Australia. "They'll be shocked by incidents of planning incompetence. They'll be annoyed that so much effort is being put toward two weeks of fun while their schools and libraries appear neglected in comparison. And, being Chicago, there will no doubt be a bribery scandal or two. But when it's all said and done, and their voices are hoarse from cheering, they'll just want to do it all over again."

An optimistic conclusion. But how many locals would really be able to afford tickets to the "trophy" athletic events to do any real cheering -- and find any available?

It's worth noting that one claimed "benefit" of a successful bid would be the obvious need to quickly upgrade Chicago's mass transit system to handle the expected swarm of new visitors. That wouldn't be free. Salt Lake City organizers used the Olympics as an excuse to use federal tax money to install a light-rail mass transit system that previously had been rejected by voters.

Is it really a "benefit" when such a shindig provides an excuse for frustrated activists to advance priorities that voters have previously rejected -- even if the voters end up footing the bill through their federal rather than through their local taxes?

At the very least, the Chicago Olympics bid should have been put to a popular vote, as a similar bid was in Colorado in 1972 -- whereupon a striking 59 percent of Coloradoans said "no thanks" to spending tax dollars to attract the 1976 Winter Olympics -- which promptly relocated to Innsbruck.