| Blame It on Rio For the next two weeks, Americans' minds will think less about politics and more about the summer Olympics, and this year's competition may offer a really different spectacle than sports fans are used to watching. The selection of Rio de Janeiro increasingly looks like a massive, historical mistake, with the city living down to its worst expectations. Despite all this, the official line from the International Olympic Committee is that there are no major problems, all is well, and everyone should be ready for a terrific event. When IOC Coordination Commission chairwoman Nawal El Moutawakel completed her final round of inspections and meetings, she declared, "Rio 2016 is ready to welcome the world," adding that "the Olympians of 2016 can look forward to living in an outstanding Olympic Village and competing in absolutely stunning venues." On every issue from Zika to the polluted waters to security to venues, the message from the committee is that everything will be fixed in time. Either we're about to bear witness to a miraculous improvement on several fronts simultaneously, or the International Olympic Committee is demonstrating one of the most epic exhibitions of willful blindness ever. No, really, this is abominable: Just days ahead of the Olympic Games the waterways of Rio de Janeiro are as filthy as ever, contaminated with raw human sewage teeming with dangerous viruses and bacteria, according to a 16-month-long study commissioned by The Associated Press. Not only are some 1,400 athletes at risk of getting violently ill in water competitions, but the AP's tests indicate that tourists also face potentially serious health risks on the golden beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana. The AP's survey of the aquatic Olympic and Paralympic venues has revealed consistent and dangerously high levels of viruses from the pollution, a major black eye on Rio's Olympic project that has set off alarm bells among sailors, rowers and open-water swimmers. There's an open sewer "50 meters from the Olympic village." The Australian team entered to find "blocked toilets, leaking pipes and exposed wiring." As I write on National Review's homepage today, the decision to select Rio de Janeiro represented the International Olympic Committee's fervent belief that Brazil had largely overcome its old flaws: corruption, crime, incompetence, disorganization. Undoubtedly, Brazilian society has seen some improvements in the past few decades, but they weren't ready to host an event on this scale, and obvious problems remained unresolved throughout the preparation process. If Trump is a deft candidate, he will point out that the troubles at the Olympics in Brazil and the current troubles in the United States have a few shared traits. Government leaders insisted that they could pull off a transformative change if given enormous amounts of money and several years. Those leaders ridiculed the skeptics, dismissed the criticism, and kept spinning the public that everything was fine and on schedule. When the mistakes became too big to ignore, they shifted blame — and in some cases, remained in denial. Ultimately, these crises stem from a refusal to see things clearly, our leaders an adamant determination to tell lies to other people and probably to themselves as well: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan." ISIS is a "jayvee team." "The world is less violent than it has ever been." "By almost every measure, America is better, and the world is better, than it was 50 years ago, or 30 years ago, or even eight years ago." If you prefer quotes from Hillary, we can offer, "Libya was a different kind of calculation. And we didn't lose a single person" or problems within the Veterans' Affairs Department have "not been as widespread as it has been made out to be" or "Director Comey said my answers were truthful." The electorate is constantly being told that the problems aren't really that bad, routine snafus that will be fixed quickly and easily . . . and then one day you're left swimming in sewage. Speaking of Zika . . . If you're in Florida, Zika is already huge news; if you live elsewhere, it's a mid-section of the paper or mid-newscast story. A big question is, in the coming weeks and months, how many more communities in America report more cases of Zika? Florida health officials said Tuesday that a one-square-mile neighborhood in north Miami, called Wynwood, is the only area in the state with active, ongoing Zika transmission by mosquitoes. But another new local infection indicates that mosquitoes are spreading the disease beyond that neighborhood. Miami-Dade County has had 13 cases of locally transmitted Zika infections; Broward County has had two. There are also 336 people in the state who acquired the disease abroad. Those numbers are expected to grow, and with thousands of Americans traveling to Florida's beaches and Disney resorts over the summer, more cases in other states are likely. The Pentagon announced Wednesday that 33 active-duty servicemen and -women, including one pregnant woman, have contracted the Zika virus in countries with outbreaks . . . One of the broader themes of the election battle between Clinton and Trump has been the split between those who tend to welcome the world and those who are more wary of what lies beyond our border — imported foreign goods, terrorists, and immigration (both legal and illegal). Polling indicates Americans have been gloomy on the "right track/wrong direction" question throughout Obama's presidency. The national mood will only become darker if enough Americans find themselves fearing that one of summer's most common annoyances, a mosquito bite, could lead to a risk of serious birth defects. Just an Old Sweet Song Keeps Georgia on my Mind Oof. This is only one poll, shouldn't read too much into it, but there's a chance that we're watching the bottom fall out for Trump. Democrat Hillary Clinton has built a slim lead over Donald Trump in Georgia after one of the worst weeks of the Republican's campaign, and the Libertarian presidential ticket cracked double-digits, according to a new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll. The poll released Friday shows Clinton at 44 percent and Trump at 40 percent, within the poll's margin of error. It is the latest showing a close race between the two candidates in Georgia, a state that has voted for the GOP nominee since 1996. Clinton maintains a lead when third-party candidates are included. In a four-way race, Clinton led Trump 41-38, followed by Libertarian Gary Johnson with 11 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein with 2 percent. Mitt Romney won Georgia in 2012 by eight points. ADDENDA: It's likely to be a rough year for Republicans, but if Debbie Wasserman Schultz loses her primary, it will bring a lot of smiles to GOP faces. She's favored, but facing a well-funded opponent . . . Coming on this week's pop culture podcast: tales from the conventions, Mickey's latest adventures in puppy-raising, analyzing Netflix's Stranger Things and Syfy's The Magicians, and deep-fried state-fair food options. Chryons like this are why the Obama administration's "the timing was merely coincidental, this was not a random payment" arguments are going to fall on deaf ears. 
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