The Olympics, Human Rights, and ... LeBron James?

8-8-08. Day one of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

I'll admit it right up front: I'm an Olympic junkie. I'm NBC's favorite customer. The sound of the Olympic theme song gives me the goosebumps. I love the competition, the national heroes that return for another try at the gold, the human interest stories that tug your heartstrings. I have a wild crush on Michael Phelps (known in my household as my Olympic boyfriend) and, when I grow up, I want to run just as fast as Allison Felix. Anyone else remember Ian Thorpe? Well, I have kept the flame burning these last four years; don't worry, he'll be back to compete in Beijing.

The Olympics, as solon and I have recently discussed, have--at least in recent (and I use the term loosely to mean the last century or so)--been political. To pretend that they haven't is pretty dishonest. There's always some group that has good reason to protest the selected location of the Games and this year is no exception. In fact, China's human rights violations--not to mention their sweeping unconcern with industrial and environmental standards--have got a lot of people, including this Olympic fan, up in arms.

Which is why I was so pleased, initially, to see the ESPN interview (done, I believe, in May) with LeBron James in which the basketball player spoke out about China's human rights violations and said he would use his celebrity in Beijing (a huge new NBA market) to raise awareness specifically about the situation in Darfur. James's USA teammate Kobe Bryant, having participated in a recent PSA about Darfur, was also expected to lead the team in public statements on this issue. But a recent interview with the players at a Team USA practice told another story. Nearly word for word, all of the players rejected the notion that they would use their international platform as a way to publicize China's violations. "We're athletes, not politicians," they claimed. Team USA officials and the NBA have claimed to have no part in this turnaround. But the millions of fans and billions of dollars in China hint otherwise.