Good Mourning, America

By Joel Stein

It's hard to be a good host. You're supposed to ask how the guests' families are, offer them something to drink, commiserate about their long drive--but all you really want to do is show them what you've done to the den, bring out the wedding photos, brag about yourself just a little bit. And Americans are not, by nature, so good at suppressing their instincts--especially the talking-about-yourself one. So it was not surprising that we skipped the beverage offering at the Winter Olympics opening ceremonies and moved straight on to the bragging part.

Luckily, not much is expected of a host, even a superrich and powerful one, when it is in mourning. At the opening ceremonies on Friday night, lots of countries carried the Stars and Stripes along with the flags of their own nations. When even the French are giving it up for the U.S.A., you know no one is going to get upset over starting the Games by displaying the tattered flag found at the World Trade Center and listening, one more time, to that one cop who can sing God Bless America. Or to George Bush's revving up the athletes by yelling "Let's roll!"

Even when the 3 1/2-hr. show ended by letting Mike Eruzione and his entire Soviet-beating 1980 U.S. "miracle on ice" hockey team light the torch--reminding the world, once again, how we won the cold war--it felt O.K. Sure, it might have been even nicer to let Eruzione light it with Slava Fetisov, the great Soviet captain and current Russian coach whom he beat. That could have made for a nice demonstration of post-cold war togetherness. But why try to kid anybody? If global events after Sept. 11 proved anything, it's that the U.S. is now the only superpower in the game. One thing that means is that everyone else is going to happily accept our invitation to party, even if it's in a town where most of the beer has been watered down to 3.2% alcohol.

But America did not disappoint with the big opening spectacle. Yes, it's pretty easy to put on a successful show when all everyone really wants is for no bombs to go off. Some $310 million was spent on security, airspace restrictions were in effect, and security forces outnumbered athletes at a 6-to-1 ratio. But even ignoring the low performance bar of just wanting to get out of the stadium alive, it was a solid, giant, silly performance, the kind America mastered long ago. There was some kind of very Olympicesque allegory about overcoming adversity in which evil icicle people chased a small boy with a lamp. Sting sang. Native Americans played flutes. The wave was waved. The entire stadium played plastic flutes and sang a rendition of She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain. And they didn't seem to mind.

But if a costume show on skates can have a subtext, it was to ask the big American question of the past five months: Where do you draw the line between remembering and forgetting? There certainly was a lot of remembering: the WTC flag, the marching police and fire fighters, the appearances by Eruzione and, especially, sitting among the athletes, President Bush. But the athletes, videotaping their walk around the stadium, handing Bush their cell phones so he could talk to their families, were also looking forward--forward to competing, perhaps even winning and, yes, having fun.

At least until they find out about that 3.2% beer.