China vs. U.S., Phelps are top stories to watch

Politics
The Games are supposed to be a refuge from the squabbles that divide the planet. This year, athletes from every national delegation have been given specific instructions to keep their politics off the medal stand. But it seems certain that this year someone will decide he or she simply has to speak out about either Tibet or Darfur, both regions in which China is involved in ways that do not generate good P.R.

The above stories I can pretty much guarantee. I can also think of a couple of subjects that have been stories going into the games that won’t be stories once they start.

Terrorism
Ever since the massacre of Israeli athletes by the PLO in Munich in 1972, the threat of terrorism has been a major story line leading into every Olympics. The closest we’ve had to an actual attack was the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta in 1996 that killed two and wounded 11. That was outside of the competition venues in an area that people could visit without being screened. It was carried out by a home-grown terrorist, Eric Rudolph, who said he was driven to his act by the government sanction of abortion.

That’s not likely to happen here. The obvious park to hit would be Tiananmen Square, the enormous plaza in the middle of the city. But to enter that park, visitors have to pass all bags and packages through an x-ray machine, and there is an enormous police presence there. China’s internal security forces have been sweeping up dissidents and must be assumed to be experts at surveillance. The bottom line remains that the Olympics are a nearly impossible target to hit.

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There may be demonstrations in Tibet or another incident like the one that killed 16 Chinese police at a border station in the nation’s far west, but the games will go off without violent incident.

No Fun Olympics
China wants these Games to be perfect, and to the people running the show here, that means nothing happens that anyone could view as immoral or improper. There have been stories about the government closing nightclubs and vowing to enforce the city’s universally ignored 2 a.m. closing time for bars. Local prostitutes have also been driven underground. It all threatens to add up to visitors not having a terribly good time.

A night out in a couple of Beijing’s party districts suggests there are still plenty of places to go for a cold one and a multitude of things to do. Some guests may not have all the fun they wanted, but they’ll have enough to send them hope happy.

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