Both Sides Of His Mouth

Wow - this column is classic Shaughnessy! The U.S. Olympic Committee is looking for a chump loser host city for the 2024 Summer Olympics and for some ungodly reason, chose Boston as the potential host city.

Let's hear more from Shank, still catching his breath:

The winning streak continues. The High Renaissance of Boston sports is extended, perhaps all the way to 2024, which would represent the full first quarter of the 21st century.

It’s not just about the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins anymore. The United States Olympic Committee Thursday selected Boston as the city that America will put forward for consideration as the host for the 2024 Summer Games.

Two years from now, the International Olympic Committee will select a host city from among a field that is expected to include Rome, Paris, Berlin . . . and Boston, the Sports Hub of the Universe.

Funny, that's not what he was saying six months ago:

Stop the madness. Please. Can we have no more noise about the Olympics coming to Boston in 2024? Can we cease and desist with the preposterous notion that this is a reasonable, fiscally-feasible project?

We do not need the Summer Olympics. We already are a world-class city. What we need is bridge repair, housing, better public schools, an improved MBTA, and programs for the disenfranchised. We need better ways to get in and out of our city. We do not need an event that would strangle us financially and logistically for decades.

So, like our former Senator John Kerry, he was against it, before he was for it!

Examined logically, nothing that Shank raised as concerns has happened in those six months - no bridges were repaired, no schools got better, no improvements on the MBTA - that would cause a rational person to change his opinion on this issue. And then there's Shank...

But wait! What's this bit, further down today's column?

And yet the committee selected Boston, a clogged city with a cranky constituency, no downtown stadium, and a well-oiled resistance (I remain a card-carrying member) to the wild and crazy notion of hosting the Olympics.

So, now he likes the idea of Boston hosting the Olympics, but just not the event itself. Got it!