A recent article in USA today
shed some light on the apparent controversy surrounding the Winter
Olympics and specifically the panel of anonymous judges that administers
them. Whether or not this is due to the United State's failure to bring
home a gold has yet to be seen, but following up on reports of cheating
and collusion among Soviet block representatives of these villainous
foreign panels, journalist Christine Brennan investigated.
She quickly found that several of these judges had previously
been either accused or outright convicted in several instances of moral
turpitude. This could well be the solid evidence we might need to
substantiate these types of accusations, though sadly whatever
transgressions may have occurred, the Olympic Committee has clearly
given the go-ahead to the parties involved. Unfortunately the effect of
this sort of indictment is merely to present Americans as sore losers
and tattle-tales. Furthermore Christine's article relies heavily on an
unnamed "high ranking Olympic figure skating official" whose fears of
repercussion so weakly excuse anonymity. I don't mean to question
anyone's ethical direction myself, but it occurs to me that it'd be
mighty easy to anonymously 'support' just about any claim you can think
of.
In fairness, national pride can easily cloud perspective
in these matters, as can a need to sell newspapers to a predominantly US
supporting clientele. I maintain, that well it may be true that the current
system in Sochi
may be ethically vulnerable, without proof of malfeasance it plainly
unreasonable to level any allegation against those persons invested by the People
with that venerated responsibility to judge impartially
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