Huffington Says Copenhagen Trip a Mistake: Obama Got 'His Clock Cleaned by the President of Brazil'

By Jeff Poor | October 02, 2009 | 22:34

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It's not too often where both a prominent conservative and a prominent liberal would deviate from their ideological consensus on a particular issue.

However, the news of the day - Chicago being beaten out by Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games is one such instance. MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough, who identifies himself as a conservative, said he was glad President Barack Obama gave it shot in an Oct. 2 post on the Huffington Post.

Ironically, the editor of the Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, who is identified as a progressive, said on NBC's Oct. 2 "The Jay Leno Show" that Obama shouldn't have gone to Copenhagen - but not for the reason a lot of critics are suggesting.

"Actually, I don't think he should have gone," Huffington said. "Not because it's problematic for a president to go to Copenhagen, I mean, he's not traveling on Southwest. You know, he was on Air Force One."

Instead, Huffington said getting beat by the President of Brazil probably doesn't bode well with new higher unemployment data released earlier in the day - a notion some conservatives were attacked for even bringing up.

"He didn't have to turn off any of his portable electronic devices," she continued. "But, the problem is, purely symbolic. I mean, today we have some of the worst unemployment numbers - almost double digits. And there he was basically getting his clock cleaned by the President of Brazil."

And Stephen Baldwin, who was also participating in the Leno segment's panel, suggested the cost for the government to promote the bid in addition to the cost for the President to go to Denmark was too much.

"Let's just say, in these economic times, apparently the numbers of what it costs for the president to go over there, something around $100 million to petition to get this Olympics," Baldwin added. "I think it a little unnecessary. And, once again, the President not getting what he wanted and I think it's going to happen again people."