| HN Mirror

The Games are supposed to be a symbol of international spirit. How could America even hope to win them? You can't claim to be "exceptional" and above the rest of the community, then ask that same community for support.

It would have been a win by hosting and providing an exemplary experience for everyone. Same reason China jumped through so many hoops in 2008 to make the Olympics go so well. They wanted to try and put on a new face to the international community and make it seem like China wasn't as big of a mess as people had thought.

Or maybe to put on a new face and show that what happened in 2000-2008 is not what happens now.

Also, the idea/theory of "American exceptionalism" was coined by Alexis de Tocqueville (A Frenchman, not American), mostly commenting on the US's stance on immigration ~50 year after the nation was formed. Later on, its turned into a term that was exploited by politicians to try and promote American nationalism after WW2. Which is basically what it refers to now. And its hardly like no other nation has ever had nationalist tendencies that were exploited in some way by political leaders.

America was tolerated before, because it had money. Now it has less money, and the cracks are beginning to show.

Not to mention being one of the few countries with an embassy in every country in the world[1], the ability to gather information or intelligence on pretty much every country in the world (even if analysts couldn't analyze it properly), oh, and still the most powerful country militarily even with the problems going on in Afghanistan.

Oh, and the United States is still the single richest country in the world. Even larger than the EU, according to the World Bank (which, admittedly doesn't count all countries in the EU, but rather a "Eurozone"). Though, the IMF and CIA World Factbook place the EU above the US. But, the EU is a sovereign group of countries with a shared economic policy. So it could be argued that the EU shouldn't count in global GDP rankings. The US's GDP is ~3x larger than its closest competitor, Japan.[2]

[1] http://www.usembassy.gov/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin... for a nice chart of all the values next to each other. It links back to the World Bank/IMF/CIA Factbook though.

//edit: All that being said, I'm personally happy that Rio de Janeiro and not Chicago is hosting the Olympics. They're definitely an emerging country to keep an eye on in the future. Its a nice nod to them, and South America in general. Plus, the country looks beautiful and it would be incredible to visit, if I manage to do so.