York Pork is Too Easy a Target in Olympics Finger-Pointing

by Beyond Chron (reposted)

Wed, Nov 15, 2006 7:43AM

No observer of the dysfunctional San Francisco 49ers organization should have been surprised when owner John York bungled the protocol for his announcement that the team would be moving to Santa Clara. (The shakiness and lack of consultation of that assertion have been well documented, and its implications for the real needs of the city were examined in Beyond Chron yesterday.) However, one aspect of the punditry surrounding this latest manifestation of bozomania, York style, strikes me as overdone. That is the suggestion that San Francisco was poised to win the 2016 Summer Olympics – or at least was the clear frontrunner for the American submission at the next vote of the International Olympic Committee.

Such speculation has the virtue of providing downfield blocking for Mayor Gavin Newsom, who does deserve credit rather than blame for holding the line against excessive private demands on the city's treasury and land. But simply scapegoating York is a cheesy gloss on a larger issue.

That San Francisco coulda been an Olympics contender, before giving up the ghost yesterday, is indisputable. But a lock? No way. Major cities across the country and around the world claw for the fumble at the bottom of the Olympics pile. No matter how many millions you throw at it, no matter how meticulously you plan it, the only way to turn a flirtation into a sure thing is the Salt Lake City way – by spreading around all the right bribes to all the right chaperones just before the bar closes.

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