You can tell a lot about a person’s character from whom he or she chooses to praise, and whom he or she chooses not to.
Late last week, in a visit to Colorado, President Obama singled out, specifically, the U.S. women’s soccer team, which beat Japan in the Olympic final to win a gold medal. During his swing through Colorado, Obama stopped by the U.S. Olympic Committee’s training center, where he trumpeted, “We have to give a special shout-out to the women’s soccer team today avenging the loss in the World Cup.”
I hate to be a wet blanket, but the U.S. women’s soccer team doesn’t deserve a “special shout-out” any more than, say, American sprinters Allyson Felix and Sandra Richards-Ross, who won gold medals in, respectively, the women’s 200-meter run and the women’s 400-meter run.
And, to be even more of a wet blanket, I feel compelled to add that Felix and Richards-Ross won their gold medals without help from the officials.
Even the most partisan American soccer fans will have to admit that wasn’t the case with the American women’s soccer team. By all rights, they shouldn’t even have been in the gold medal game against Japan. Team Canada was leading the Americans 3-2 late in the semifinal game when, expert soccer commentators on NBC later told us, an official made an egregious call against the Canadian goalie.
The call allowed the Americans a shot at the Canadian goal with a slew of Canadian players lined up to block it. The kick caromed off the arms of two successive Canadian players. The officials were quick to call a hand ball, giving the Americans a penalty kick.
The Americans scored on the kick and tied the game, which they won in overtime.
Members of the Canadian team were furious, and I can’t blame them. They must have had the feeling that, 200 years after we tried to bust their country’s hump by invading Canada in the War of 1812, we had successfully busted their humps in the Olympics.
During the gold medal game, the ball clearly hit the arm of an American player. That should have led to a penalty kick that might have tied the score, but the ref didn’t bother to call it, even though it was more obvious and flagrant than the one officials were so quick to call against the Canadians.
So yes, the American women’s soccer team had some help on its way to that gold medal. That’s the kindest assessment of the facts. The worst would be that Olympic soccer officials seemed to be hell-bent on doing all they could to assure a victory for the American women’s team.
I’m all for Americans winning gold medals, but fair, darn it, is fair.
Likewise, Obama not only doesn’t give the proverbial tinker’s dam about fair, but he’ll also have no truck with it. His administration, in a blatant and craven attempt to troll for Latino votes, announced a policy that will allow young illegal immigrants to apply for work permits and stay in the United States, if only temporarily.
Republicans rightly pointed out that would be unfair to those who want to immigrate to the United States legally. This bothers Obama not one iota. His attempt earlier this year to jackboot Catholic institutions into providing health insurance coverage for birth control was not only unfair, but also downright unconstitutional.
But this is a president who thinks the Roe v. Wade decision, a ruling that condemned millions of unborn children to the surgeon’s knife, was the very essence of fairness.
No wonder he’s ecstatic about the American women’s Olympic soccer team unfairly winning the gold medal.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
