I told you a couple of days ago about the NY Times’s Alessandra Stanley attacking NBC for their pro-American coverage of the Olympics.

Now, the Washington Post is getting in on the America-bashing action. Radical leftist Susan Jacoby took to her WaPo blog, “The Spirited Atheist” to bash American patriotism as “anti-intellectual” and a “social disease”.

If you would like a graphic (literal and figurative) demonstration of our nation’s greatest failing, sit in front of your television set and watch NBC cover an international sports event, the Winter Olympics, as if only Americans were participating.

…The conviction that the United States is morally and culturally better than other
countries–including other developed democracies–is a real social disease that hurts us more than it does anyone else. It is also a profoundly anti-intellectual.

She goes on to cite achievement test scores of other nation’s children as a major reason our pride in America is unwarranted, or at least overblown. Our failure to adopt a European style socialized health care system is another reason we suck, and Canada and Europe rule.

Jacoby touts Canada’s glorious free health system even as a Canadian Premiere Danny Williams is taking heat for coming to the US for his heart surgery.

Williams defended his decision to seek treatment in the US, saying, "This was my heart, my choice and my health.”

Anyway, Jacoby goes on to complain that NBC could have used the Olympics being in Vancouver to highlight Canada’s health system and shill for ObamaCare — instead of clucking about “Team USA’s” medal count.

She also bashes religion and America’s embrace of it — Christianity in particular.

Susan Jacoby’s message is not new and is the same basic mantra we’ve heard from the left for years. Americans are a bunch of God loving, gun loving, patriotic hicks, who are too stupid to realize how much better Europeans have it.

My question for Susan Jacoby is simple. If Europe is so damn great and their health system is so superior, why the hell do you live here?

-Chris Jones

According to the NY Daily News, Olympic gold medalist figure skater Evan Lysacek (the guy Putin hates) is dating Olympic gold medalist, gymnast Nastia Liukin.

All I can say is , well played, sir. Nastia is not only an amazing athlete, but an amazing looking athlete as well. If you don’t remember Nastia, she won the gold for women’s gymnastics all-around last summer in Beijing.

The NY Times’s Alessandra Stanley takes issue with NBC’s coverage of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. It’s just too damn pro-American!

Technology evolves, organizers add new sports — this year it’s ski cross — but NBC’s Olympic reportage, up close and way too personal, never seems to change. And in Vancouver the best exploits of what the network unfailingly refers to as “Team USA” only bring out the worst in network heavy breathing.

At a time when American athletes are amassing record numbers of medals, and NBC is drawing an impressive number of viewers, sports fans couldn’t ask for more fulsome, pro-American coverage — they could ask for a little less. NBC anchors, including those paid by the news division, glom onto the glamour and reflected glory of winsome champions, as per Matt Lauer’s no-boundaries embrace of the skier Lindsey Vonn on “Today” after she won the downhill race.

Yeah, Americans don’t want to hear about their fellow countrymen (or is it comrades now?) winning a bunch of gold medals. Screw that shit, tell us about the other countries instead.

NBC has been so intent on fellowship and the thrill of victory that it has neglected the thrill of an agonizing defeat, namely Russia’s. NBC paid only cursory attention to Russian bitterness over Yevgeny Plushenko losing the gold medal to the American Evan Lysacek, even after the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin weighed in with neo-cold-war disdain. The 2014 games are to be held in Sochi, a Black Sea resort, and Russia will be the host. For viewers seeking an international playing field, CNN may be a better bet.

I don’t really know how much more they could have devoted to that story. Vladimir Putin bitching about America in a posturing cold war tone is certainly nothing new. I think the better part of the story is the part NBC gave the most coverage to. During his interview with Bob Costas, American gold medalist Evan Lysacek spoke about his win over the angry Russian. He wondered if Putin would allow him into the country to compete at the 2014 games being held in Russia.

Alessandra Stanley’s bitterness over the pro-America tone of the NBC coverage is typical of the left. Leftists don’t view America as anything special. If anything, it’s an embarrassment (or it was until Obama was elected). In their view America is no better than any other place in the world and coverage of the Olympics should reflect that.

Fortunately, the leftist view of America is a minority one. A sad, lonely, pathetic minority.

-Chris Jones

I almost fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard at this…

This is hilarious. Listen to the shock and horror by the CNN anchor as it’s announced that Chicago will not get the Olympics. I suspect his shock is more about the denial of Obama than with the Olympics themselves.

Michael Phelps, the greatest swimmer on the planet, now has “taint” on him according to British tabloid News Of The World. Phelps visited his girlfriend at the University of South Carolina last November where he attended several parties. At one party, Phelps was photographed smoking marijuana from a glass bong.

The pictures could mean immediate disqualification from the next Olympic games based on the current drug rules. Phelps’s PR people offered News Of The World a variety of incentives not to publish the photographs, but the tabloid declined.

This is a hugely overblown story. Who cares if Phelps was hitting a bong at a party? Who hasn’t? With the kind of regimented and disciplined life he’s had to lead up until now to become such an amazing athlete — he deserves to have a little fun. Let the man enjoy his youth a little bit.

Because Phelps smoked a little grass at a party, doesn’t change the fact that he’s still the greatest swimmer the world has ever known.

It’s not as if he was caught injecting steroids into his ass in a seedy motel room. He was incredibly foolish to put his endorsement deals at risk by taking bong hits in public view, but I’m sure all his new found fame is a little overwhelming.

Give the guy a break.

-Chris Jones

Congratulations to Nastia Liukin for winning the GOLD medal in the women’s gymnastics all-around.

Congratulations to Shawn Johnson for winning the SILVER medal in the women’s gymnastics all-around!!

World champion Tyson Gay ran the fastest 100 meter race ever. He clocked in at 9.68 seconds which would have been a new world record if not for the 4.1 meters per second wind speed.

Only marks set with assisting winds of 2.0 meters per second or less can be considered for record purposes. The victory does put Gay on his first U.S. Olympic team which is what the 25-year old was hoping for.