Obama selection of Billie Jean King for Sochi 'genius'

[sheshe2]

USA Today: Obama selection of Billie Jean King for Sochi ‘genius’

President Obama’s selection of Billie Jean King for the official U.S. delegation to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games is a stroke of genius.

What better way to show the nation’s disgust for President Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay propaganda law than for Obama to send an American cultural icon and sports legend who also happens to be openly gay?

King, 70, the winner of 12 Grand Slam singles titles during her Hall of Fame tennis career, never was an Olympian, but she has been watching Putin's discriminatory law from afar.

In a recent conversation with USA TODAY Sports' Kelly Whiteside, King talked about the general hesitancy U.S. athletes expressed regarding the law.

"Sometimes I think we need a John Carlos moment," she said on Sept. 25, referring to the U.S. track star who was expelled from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics along with American sprinter Tommie Smith for protesting racial discrimination.

more
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2013/12/17/president-obama-sochi-billie-jean-king-winter-games-russia-putin/4058273/

Putin haz a sad~


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Snowdenski's boss hears President Obama is sending Billie Jean King to Sochi
9:39 PM - 17 Dec 2013

http://theobamadiary.com/2013/12/17/genius-4/

[freshwest]

1. Strange mixture: Snowden with freedom for some...

I remember watching BJK back in the day. She's looking good.

[sheshe2]

2. Polar opposites.

freshwest

[MattSh]

3. Somehow I don't think Putin cared,

one way or another. He's got better things to do.

[freshwest]

4. Agreed.

[grantcart]

5. On the contrary I think he is a man with a fairly strong obsession with symbolism especially as it

reflects how his countrymen perceive him.

[madrchsod]

7. "fairly strong obsession with symbolism" you mean...

riding bareback on his horse with no shirt on? maybe some of those other manly pictures of his physical prowess?

billie jean will be a great spokesperson for america.

[DinahMoeHum]

8. Agreed. Never underestimate the power of embarrassment

and the subsequent desire to save face.

These gestures are better than a boycott.

Still, I'd love to see some athlete/s pull a Tommie Smith/John Carlos gesture on the podium.

[Major Hogwash]

10. The same could be said about Obama.

There is no doubt that Putin isn't going to be shamed into changing his mind or doing something that America wants just because of the members of the delegation that Obama sends to Russia to attend these games.

[grantcart]

16. Not true. Putin gave amnesty to Green Peace and Pussy Riots today just because the outside

world found their actions barbaric.

But it has little to do with the US as much as Russia's century old inferiority complex where they have always been characterized and felt like the disrespected cousins in Europe.

It isn't America's position but the shared position of all the rest of Western Civilization.

What this delegation does do, in real terms, is give standing and reinforcement to the reform voices that already exist in Russia, ammunition that they both need and know how to use.

There is, of course, no comparison between Putin who has helped foster a campaign of terror against Russian journalists who report against him or gangster capitalists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

А wide-ranging investigation by the International Federation of Journalists into the deaths of journalists in Russia was published in June 2009. At the same time the IFJ launched an online database[2][3] which documents over three hundred deaths and disappearances since 1993. Both the report Partial Justice[4] (Russian version: Частичное правосудие and the database depend on the information gathered in Russia over the last 16 years by the country's own media monitors, the Glasnost Defense Foundation and the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.

Any comparison with any Western Leader including President Obama is, of course, hogwash.

[Major Hogwash]

17. Hahaha!!!!!

That just happened today, and it doesn't have a thing to do with changing his mind about how he treats gay people.

[grantcart]

18. I know that this is a little complicated for you but this discussion

has never been about Putin's opinion about gay people.

Putin, like all good authoritarian leaders, uses fear to create hegemony among the population and Gays are only the most recent canard.

Russians also crave to be accepted as full equals into their European neighborhood and Putin's campaign against gays has created a gap the size of the Grand Canyon. Russia will not be accepted as a respectable member of the group as long as they are going to the back to the middle ages with homophobia.

The use of high profile symbols to make the point to the Russian intelligentsia isn't aimed at Putin per se but in giving support for those that are determined to fight Putin within the country.

As for Putin's reversal on the Pussy Riot and Green Peace prosecution and imprisonment, the fact that it is happening weeks before the Winter Olympics proves exactly the point that Putin is very concerned in maintaining a level of respectability among his European neighbors.

But I don't really expect you to get it because you apparently thought that someone thought that Putin was going to do an immediate reversal because he was "going to be shamed into changing his mind or doing something that America wants just because of the members of the delegation that Obama sends to Russia to attend these games" having completely missed the point of why the President made the point it would be unfair to expect you to see the longer term strategy or how that strategy has in fact been successful on other human rights issues that the West holds Putin in contempt for.

[eShirl]

6. poutin' Putin

awwww, not

[Cha]

9. Definitely "a Juan Carlos Moment"!

"Sometimes I think we need a John Carlos moment," she said on Sept. 25, referring to the U.S. track star who was expelled from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics along with American sprinter Tommie Smith for protesting racial discrimination."

Thank you, she~

[IrishAyes]

11. Nice picture of BJK and POTUS

Does anybody even remember Bobby Briggs, or whoever it was that challenged her to that infamous tennis match? Good to see her doing so well.

[sheshe2]

12. It is indeed a great picture, Irish.

Bobby Riggs, yep I remember.

[IrishAyes]

13. BJK whupped his rear good, didn't she?

[sheshe2]

14. She sure did, Irish!

[IrishAyes]

15. I watched the match and kept rooting for her.

Although I'm not gay, many of my heroes are/were. Sally Ride, for instance. I realize some people say 'gay' applies only to males, but I rather prefer the term should include both sexes. Just my opinion. I like the word.

[mopinko]

19. i also totally do not blame him for taking a pass.

teh nontroversy would never end, no matter what they did once they left the ground (if not before).
and i just flat out would worry about his safety there.

eleven dimension chess