America's biggest Olympic hero yesterday accused George Bush of exploiting the Athens Games for his own political advantage in the run-up to the presidential election.
Carl Lewis, who won nine Olympic gold medals in athletics in a record-breaking career, condemned Bush for using the presence of Iraqi and Afghan teams in Athens in a television advertisement to boost his chances of re-election.
Criticising Bush for linking his foreign policy with the two countries being allowed to compete here, Lewis said: 'I felt that was disingenuous. It is funny that we boycotted the 1980 Games [in Moscow] in support of Afghanistan, and now we're bombing Afghanistan,' he told the Athens News yesterday.
Do you remember Carl Lewis in the 1996 games? He was a legend then and the U.S. decided to include him on one of the relay events despite the fact that he didn't qualify like everyone else. Gold Medal winner Michael Johnson was pretty angry at the decision and said that Carl Lews "finished butt naked last at the qualifiers." Lewis wound up winning the longjump event further adding to his legend. He then let the Clinton administration politicize him by parading around with Clinton a few days later. In short, he's a Democrat.
Bush can be proud that the Iraqis and the Afghans are sporting teams. Afterall, it wasn't Lewis' prized Clinton Administration that won them the opportunity. As far as the comparisons of our boycotting in 1980, Lewis forgets the context in which Afghanistan was invaded in 1980 and then again in 2001. In fact, our bombing of Afghanistan this time has ensured that they have a team.
No comments:
Post a Comment