Go World? No. Go America!

I sat on the floor of my living room yelling at the television “You can catch him! C’mon! Please catch him!” as Jason Lezak swam the final 10 meters of the Men’s 4x100 Relay. For just a few minutes, he carried the weight of every American’s pride on his shoulders. He delivered.

Seeing the wonderful words,“1. United States”, appear first on the screen was the most beautiful thing I have seen in a long time. Like good red-blooded Americans, my family and I went crazy.

First came the victory cry. Everyone has their own unique noise which they display for all to hear after a great victory has been won. As I fell back on the floor I threw my hands in the air and let out the loudest “Whaaaaaa!” I have since high school.

My dad jumped out of his chair as my mom stood on the other side of the room with her hand over her mouth. The bottom floor of my house was shaking with the noise of our celebration.

Next came the “I need to see that again!” moment. Like with every great moment in sports, we wanted to see it again, but this time in slow motion -- so as to study every movement of the athlete and try to determine at what moment the “break though” came that pushed him to world record heights.

Silently we sat there as the replay slowly played through. Almost as if it hadn’t already happened we watched Lezak’s hand closely as he reached out and touched “gold“. Smiles revisited all of our faces as we beat the French, and the world, for the “second” time. Sound familiar?

A few minutes later, as we were still discussing the race, an interesting commercial come on. A Visa commercial to be exact. The voice was Morgan Freeman’s and, in his own classic way, he said “There are six billion of us. We all come from unique places, with unique ways of looking at the world. We don’t always agree, but for a few shining weeks we set it all aside. We come together to stand and cheer and celebrate as one. We think all the things that make us different and remember all the things that make us the same.” Then the two words, “Go World” appeared on the screen.

That’s when a feeling of shame came over me. Shame for America’s mainstream media. Just when our country is enjoying the most exciting, patriotic moment in years, someone says “Go World”.

Leave it to the media, our media, to work it’s way around saying “Great job USA. We’re the best!”. That’s something our media would never do. I’ve sat amazed as I’ve listened to our own Olympic commentators say “We don’t cheer for the uniform, but the person wearing the uniform”. Such are the ways of those too afraid to have open opinions.

I’ve seen every swim competition so far. I know almost every swimmer by name and several of their stories. But there are a few that I had never heard of -- such as those in the Men’s 200m Relay 2nd heat. I didn’t get to see their names, but the moment the race began, I was sitting on the edge of my seat cheering them on.

I didn’t know who they were. I didn’t know if they were great guys personally. After the race, I didn’t even recognize two of their names, but I cheered for them anyway, all because of the uniform they wore. Take up the American flag, and you’ll have an entire nation behind you. All because of the uniform you wear. It’s called Patriotism.

The commercial said, “We don’t always agree, but for a few shining weeks we set it all aside”. That’s great. I’m happy to hear that the war in Iraq has been postponed for two weeks, and it’s good to know that China won’t be persecuting Christians during the length of the games. I don‘t think so.

Perhaps we should set aside the fact that the Chinese government rerouted the farmer’s water canals from around Beijing into the “river” that was a dry rock bed five months ago, which left the farmers without water for that entire duration. Is Kayaking THAT important to the Olympics? No.

If you would have traveled five miles outside of Beijing six months ago, you would probably be hard-pressed to find several people that even knew what Kayaking was. But they do now. Kayaking, Rowing, and the need to impress has literally stolen their life away in every sense of the word.

Hearing, “We come together to stand and cheer and celebrate as one”, was almost more than I could take. The Olympics aren’t about celebrating as one. It’s about winning. The hundreds of thousands of combined hours that Team USA has invested in preparation was not for the opening ceremonies. We don’t celebrate as one. We celebrate as Americans.

Did you see any Americans celebrating Kosuke Kitajima as he let out a roar after defeating Brendan Hansen? Or when our Girls Gymnastic team, with tears in their eyes, faltered several times? How about when Katie Hoff lost the gold in the last 5 meters of the Woman’s 400m Freestyle? Did anyone say “Let’s celebrate with the French, they did good too” after we beat them? No way. As Americans, we’re here to win because we are the best. We celebrate our amazing athletes.

The political “courtesy” of our mainstream media has become the largest anti-American force within are own borders. There’s nothing more un-American as showing a video montage of a Communist country celebrating it’s wins. The mainstream media is not the voice of America, but a small few with a lot of money. We, on the other hand, are the true voice, and we must be heard.

In the Men’s 4x100 relay, thirty-two year old Jason Lezak swam one and a half seconds faster than he ever had in his entire life. “The Lezak Comeback” will live forever.

Go World? No. Go America!