Small Consolation

While New York City's 2012 Olympic planning group licks its wounds having lost the chance to host the games, London, England beat the favorite Paris, France to host the games.

Good for London! After Jacques Chirac acted like an ass over the last few days complaining about British cuisine among a few other diplomats, it's nice to see London rewarded for putting on an excellent proposal for the games.

One can only imagine what kind of games New York would have put on. New York City would have spent billions to redevelop vast areas of the city, including hundreds of acres of waterfront properties that would have been turned into the Olympic Village and housing after the games were over. It is possible the housing will still be built, some of the venues may still be built in order to go after the 2016 games, but it is likely that the current Olympic bid leadership will not be around to see it through.

UPDATE:
John Podhoretz has some interesting insights into the failed NYC bid and its repercussions on the NYC Mayoral race. The loss helps Bloomberg since it takes away talking points from his opponents despite the fact that the bid was Bloomberg's idea to begin with.