The US Women’s “National” Team may have been thrashed by the ladies from Sweden
and the US Men’s Basketball team ended up playing Lucky Pierre to an unheralded French squad,
but there is one thing some of our Olympians have shown that they can be darned good at is bootlicking.
First lady Jill Biden was poolside in Tokyo as USA Swimming began competition on Saturday—but she was the one getting cheered on. The American athletes began chanting “Dr. Jill Biden!” as they waited to take their turn in the pool. Biden, wearing the blue Team USA blazer and a mask, waved to the swimmers from stands that are largely empty due to the COVID-19 surge in Japan.
The Daily Beast article is incorrect (I know…shocked face), the swimmers chant “Chairman Kim, Chairman Kim” sorry, I mean “Dok-tor Bi-den! Dok-tor Bi-den!”
Presidents and first ladies attending the Olympics is not new. What is unprecedented is for anyone to receive the kind of slavish adulation usually reserved for Third World despots. It is one thing to chant “U-S-A,” it is a completely different proposition to promote a cult of personality around the First Lady, even if she is probably the de facto president of the United States. If athletes didn’t chant Michelle Obama’s name when she headed the US delegation in 2012, this was at the height of the Obama worship phase of US history; one has to wonder what the hell is going on to make Jill Biden the subject of this kind of worship.