In an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times,  Buzz Bissinger says that the Olympic Games are “inherely jingoistic” because of things like medal counts. He calls for a permanent cancellation of the Olympics, with America leading the charge:

But a far stronger factor in the exit of the American team would be the likelihood that American corporations would stop backing the Olympics with their megamillions. It would also severely diminish the willingness of American networks to continue to pay mind-boggling sums for the broadcast rights to the Olympics, which in the case of NBC was about $2.2 billion for the Games in 2010 and 2012. If Americans aren’t playing, Americans won’t watch.

The last sentence of this paragraph actually is a supreme example of jingoism itself. Perhaps we should permanently boycott Buzz Bissinger articles…