Grassley OK with Obama's Olympic trip

By James Q. Lynch

The Gazette

President Obama's visit to Denmark to help his hometown of Chicago win the 2016 Olympic Games has drawn criticism from Republican leaders, but not Sen. Chuck Grassley.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, for example, ripped Obama Wednesday, saying the president was “going to go off to Copenhagen when we've got serious issues here at home that need to be debated.”

It's a theme other Republicans have sounded this week as the Windy City enters the final round of competition with Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Spain and Tokyo for the summer games.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele called it “noble for the president to pitch his home city, Chi-town,” before the International Olympic Committee Friday. Then Steele criticized the trip as a distraction from more pressing issues such as health care, job creation and other urgent demands on Obama's time.

The president had not planned to go, but this week the White House announced Obama thought the health care debate was far enough along that he could escape for the day to lobby the International Olympic Committee's voters to bring the games to his home town.

Grassley, however, is in the same camp as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2008 and headed the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, who called the trip proper.

“In the current environment, the presence of a head of state is important to get the Games,” Romney said. He noted former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had set a new standard by personally lobbying for his country's successful 2012 Olympic bid.

Grassley agreed.

“Well, considering it's between the United States and Brazil, I would want the president of the United States representing the people of America the same way I would expect maybe the president of Brazil is trying to justify why it ought to be in Rio de Janeiro,” Grassley told reporters.