The IOC has jumped all over Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt for what they called the lack of sportsmanship he displayed winning gold medals with record-breaking performances in the 100 and 200 meters.

“That’s not the way we perceive being a champion,” IOC president Jacques Rogge said.

[Insert huffy voice here] Well (sniff).

The IOC’s disdainful reproach might carry a little more weight with Bolt—if the IOC had any credibility on the issue at all.

Too bad it doesn’t, thanks to its deliberate, determined and continuing refusal to investigate claims that at least two of the gymnasts who participated in women’s gymnastics for China are underage.

In addition to documents that have been provided to the IOC that call the girls’ ages into question, the girls simply look too young to compete. Just today, there is yet another report of someone who’s uncovered documents that all but prove that China is cheating.

But rather than investigating the claims with an even hand and a determination to get to the truth, the IOC simply takes the word of the Chinese government—even though that very government produces the documents they used to “prove” the girls’ ages.

At first, it was almost funny: Grown men and women suspending reality to take the word of a communist government at the risk of offending the host nation.

But when it continued into the competition and the girls were allowed to participate, it stopped being funny, and it became insulting. There’s a rule for people who break the rules: They’re called cheaters. But the IOC doesn’t seem to mind.

The unbelievable nature of this situation is compounded by the lengths to which the IOC has prepared itself to go to address questions about athletes’ genders. From the U.K. Guardian:

For more than a year, officials in Beijing have been designing a special laboratory to determine the sex of any athletes taking part in this year’s Olympic games. “Suspected athletes will be evaluated from their external appearances by experts and undergo blood tests to examine their sex hormones, genes and chromosomes for sex determination,” says Professor Tian Qinjie. The tests will not be conducted on every female athlete, but will be required if serious doubts have been raised about an individual competitor—invariably one competing in the women’s events. “The aim is to protect fairness at the games while also protecting the rights of people with abnormal sexual development,” he says.

So, let me get this straight: The IOC is willing to subject athletes with genetic abnormalities beyond their control to medical examinations that are invasive down to the chromosome “to protect fairness at the games,” but it refuses to arrange for a pediatric dentist to examine the little girl gymnasts—or even take seriously the veritable mountain of proof that is stacking up despite their determination to ignore China’s cheating?

Not only is China cheating. The IOC is helping them cover it up.

No wonder Bolt doesn’t care what the IOC thinks. 

All but lost in the furious vigil the national press is keeping over Barack Obama’s VP selection is news that the United States is close to finalizing a deal with the Iraqi government that could have U.S. troops leaving Iraqi cities as soon as June 30, 2009.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Baghdad today for an unannounced meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to address outstanding issues left unresolved by the nations’ respective negotiators as they drew up the plans and an accompanying “strategic framework agreement,” which spells out in broad terms the political, security and economic relationships between Iraq and the United States, according to the Associated Press.

As for the withdrawal agreement itself, the AP reports:

In addition to spelling out that U.S. troops would move out of Iraqi cities by next summer, the Iraqi government has pushed for a specific date—most likely the end of 2011—by which all U.S. forces would depart the country. In the meantime, the U.S. troops would be positioned on bases in other parts of the country to make them less visible while still being able to assist Iraqi forces as needed.

U.S. officials said the outstanding issues include the timeline for U.S. troop withdrawals, immunity for U.S. troops and the handling of Iraqi prisoners, and Rice said simply, “There are still issues concerning exactly how our forces operate. The agreement rests on aspirational timelines.”

Yes, the T-word—timeline—which the Bush Administration has been so averse to using.

The AP said Rice described her visit as “a chance for me to meet with the prime minister and see what we can do from Washington to get to closure.”

Closure. In Iraq. By 2011.

Maybe it’s just me, but there was something about hearing Rice use that word—“closure”—that seemed to indicate an oblique resignation among Bush Administration officials that a long-term American presence in Iraq is not only unsustainable and undesirable, but it is also unwanted.

If the agreement is reached, does it make Iraq more or less of an issue for the general election campaign?

CNN’s Glenn Beck thinks he’s discovered the reason why poverty is so pervasive in many of America’s biggest cities.

Here’s a hint: He’s talking trend lines at City Hall.

Check it out here, then come back and tell me what you think. 

No one seems to be able to get a good bead on Barack Obama’s running mate, but one man says he’s been able to divine—from across the pond—whom Obama will choose as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Tim Walker of the U.K. Telegraph writes for his Mandrake column that his sources (anonymous, of course) tell him that Obama will tap Caroline Kennedy for the post; she would be following in the footsteps of her grandfather, Joe Kennedy, who served in the Court of St. James from 1938 to 1940.

The ambassadorship would be payback, Walker writes, for Caroline Kennedy’s enthusiastic support of Obama’s campaign and for her ability to secure the endorsement of her uncle, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, for Obama.

Most ambassadorships are political payback. They are gifts to allies of political victors for the loyal service—and, many times, financial support—of their backers. But an ambassadorship to, say, the Bahamas is different than one to a major U.S. ally like the U.K.

I’m not saying Caroline Kennedy isn’t qualified. She may be. For the sake of our relationships with the U.K., Europe, NATO and other key diplomatic players, I hope that if Obama is elected, she has better diplomatic bearings than her grandfather: He argued during the early stages or World War II against giving aid to Britain because, as he famously said in the Boston Sunday Globe in November 1940, “Democracy is finished in England. It may be here.”

Even as he was seeking an audience with Adolf Hitler against the wishes of Winston Churchill, Joe Kennedy also demonstrated the attitude described by fans of the family dynasty as self-confidence but decried by its detractors as arrogance: “I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it’s up to me to see that the country gets it,” he said.

On another note, where did Walker get this information? If it came from an Obama campaign staffer or adviser, it would signal troubling entanglements between politics and future policy in an Obama administration. If it came from Kennedy herself, it would mean that Obama and/or his assistants have already made representations and/or assurances to her that she has the position locked up, and that would signal a shortsightedness in Obama’s willingness to appoint the right people based on circumstances and the political climate at the time of the appointment.

One final thing: Caroline Kennedy is one of two people coordinating (or, more appropriately, who have coordinated) Barack Obama’s search for a vice presidential nominee. That search, and its results, have been among the best-kept secrets in recent political memory.

What does it mean that the VP news has been held so close to the vest, but the ambassadorship story, of which Caroline Kennedy is the subject, made it into a gossip blog of a newspaper on the other side of the Atlantic?

Jeanne Moos has this look at how politics isn’t the only thing on the campaign trail that’s infectious.

Politico quotes the Nashville (Tenn.) Post in reporting that senior officials of Barack Obama’s campaign “are being dispatched from various locations around the country and are converging in Indianapolis for a ‘major event’ to take place on Sunday.”

Indianapolis, as in Indiana, as in home to Evan Bayh.

Obama’s overnighting with Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine in Richmond tonight, leading to more speculation about what that may mean for the completion of the ticket. But it may be time to set the egg timer on this subject: Politico says Newsweek’s Howard Fineman is reporting that the VP prospects have been asked where they can be reached tomorrow afternoon.

Check out the Politico article, with a link to the Post article, here.

Out of curiosity, how many of you out there have signed up to receive Obama’s text message about the VP? 

Well, we’re standing on Thursday’s front step ... do you think Barack Obama’s running mate will be announced tomorrow?

He needs some sort of pick-me-up; his poll numbers aren’t trending in the directions his supporters would like to see them go.

What VP prospect did you take in your office pool or among your friends? Who’ve you got your money on?

For what it’s worth, RealClearPolitics reports that Air America listeners (yes, plural) are evenly split in their predictions that Obama will pick either Joe Biden or Evan Bayh.

See also:

If you’re a regular reader of this space, chances are you know that I’m no fan of anonymous sources in traditional media.

(Tabloids, as we—and John Edwards—have learned over the past few months, are a different animal entirely. Paying sources for information opens an entirely new can of worms; money can be an incentive and a disincentive when it comes to getting the truth.)

But I digress.

Today’s example of anonymous-sourcing-leads-to-sloppy-reporting is the traditional media’s handling of the news of the untimely death of U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio.

Jones suffered an aneurysm on Tuesday. She was hospitalized. Many traditional media outlets—including the Associated Press, CNN, Fox, the web site for the Washington Post and even Tubbs Jones’ hometown paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer -- reported early Wednesday afternoon that she had died, based on information from “various Democratic officials who spoke on condition of anonymity,” according to the AP.

Only one problem with that: She hadn’t. She was in critical condition, but she was still alive.

So the news orgs published a corrected article based on information provided by medical officials at the hospital where Tubbs Jones was being treated.

And by the time people were starting to come around to the realization that Tubbs Jones had, in fact, not died, she had.

So the press had to run with the original versions of their stories. And people were left to wonder whether it was just the latest example of sloppy journalism run amok, or if Tubbs Jones really was alive.

This AP article details how the story became a murky, muddled mess: It’s an anonymous source finger-pointing fest.

But no one in the mainstream media seems willing to point the finger at the man (or woman) in the mirror, even though they could have avoided all this confusion (and those annoying and ego-busting corrections) had they simply insisted on getting the report of Tubbs Jones’ death on the record before they reported it as fact.

(The old timers used to call that cumbersome, outdated and redundant process “reporting.")

And that’s how the story about the Tubbs Jones story came to be its own AP story.

One more note: Those “various Democratic officials who spoke on condition of anonymity” were never identified—even in the story about the story that ended up not being true.

Ah, irony: You wield a bitter sword.

See also: