[davidw]

If I get together enough people, I could probably get the bike racing results on the front page too!

The fact that people voted for it has no bearing on whether it's off topic. If you want a pure popularity contest, the most "intellectually gratifying" thing out there might turn out to be Justin Bieber articles or something like that.

Here is a previous, more complete comment of mine on why politics is bad for sites like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6120530

[chris_wot]

You said it wasn't interesting. I disagreed. It appears others have also. My final word on this. Feel free to have the last word, if you like.

[davidw]

Ok, I'll try and explain it in another way: it's an interesting bit of news for people like me who follow current events. It's sad to see it happening after the 'Arab Spring', and I wonder how it will affect other countries, what the US reaction to it will be, and so on.

So it's "interesting" and important from a current events/politics point of view. But not at all in a "deeper understanding of the world" way. The latter is what Hacker News should be about. There are tons of sites for the former.