For the first time since 2000 the U.S. will not send a president, former president, first lady or vice president to the Olympic Games. They will, however, send two openly gay athletes to represent the United States. Billie Jean King will be one of two gay athletes in the U.S. delegation for both the opening and closing ceremonies. Hockey player Caitlin Cahow, the other gay representative to the delegation, will attend the closing ceremony.
Obama has had plenty of chances to confront Putin. Instead he has chosen symbolism. Symbolism resonates well with abstract followers and is a hell of a lot safer--for Obama. He gets to take a position and get to pontificate or shrug if something goes wrong. The gay athlete, however, does not get that protection. She walks, like Uriah, to the forefront of the battle for reasons unconnected to her leader's.
William of Cumberland, a younger son of George II of Great Britain, was the general in charge of the war against the rebel Jacobins in Scotland, the last war on British soil. He incorporated the Scottish Campbells into his army, symbolic of the unity between the Scots and the English. (The lowland Protestant Campbells hated the Catholic Jacobin highlanders.) The Campbells led the charges in the conflicts and were quite brave. They suffered terrific causalities and most of the British Army casualties at the decisive Culloden.
But at least they were not real British troops. And Cumberland did not like them much anyway.
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