"Sensationally rebuffed..."

"astonishing rebuff..."

Those are the terms Reuters, the most staid of the news reporting organizations, used to describe the effect on President Obama after Chicago's first round elimination to host the 2016 Olympic games.

Dramatically--and inexplicably--the president flew to Denmark to lobby the International Olympic Committee in person, becoming the first American president to do so. Here's hoping, and betting, he's the last, for as Reuters also accurately reported the president thereby put his international "personal and political prestige" on the line. And lost whatever he had put.

Forty years ago President Richard Nixon, a college football fan, personally weighed in on a controversy involving the number one team in the land. Nixon said it was Texas, and thereby earned himself the temporary enmity of the entire state of Pennsylvania and the eternal enmity of Joe Paterno, the coach of the "other" undefeated team that year, Penn State. It was an unnecessary blunder. And from a president capable of so much greater blunders.

At least Nixon kept his sports blundering at home.

The world is a challenging enough place for an American president, with abundant enough opportunities for sensational, astonishing rebuffs to put presidential prestige in service to sports.

This is Public Occurrences.