Olympic Boulevard

You've probably heard by now that Los Angeles is one of five cities in the running to serve as the United States Olympic Committee's pick for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Houston, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco are also in the running.

The Daily News thinks L.A. should give up its Olympic dreams for now. But the paper's reasons are rather thin: L.A. shouldn't be an Olympic hog, they say -- and besides, do we really want to showcase our city on an international stage? (Huh?!)

They write:

Don't get us wrong: Hosting the games would be a great honor and financial boon for L.A. But by Olympic standards, we practically just hosted games in 1984. And before that, Los Angeles hosted the 1932 Olympics.

Seeing that we waited 52 years between our first and second Olympics, doesn't hosting a third 32 years later seem premature?

Only one city has hosted three Olympic Games, and that's Athens, which not only has a unique claim to the honor, but also waited 98 years for it. London will be hosting its third games in 2012, but it's waited since 1948.

In the true spirit of the games - which is international brotherhood and goodwill - maybe some other cities should get a shot at playing host first. The world knows plenty about L.A. already - maybe too much!

I'm not exactly sure what they mean by that last line. (The Olympics, after all, would help combat whatever negative notions the world has about our fine city.)

Way to support your own city, Daily News. Perhaps the paper would be more eager to bring the Games here if the host "city" was "The San Fernando Valley, California."