Mo Dowd on the 'lympics.

[T]he White House has become the palace of paradox.

The war that was supposed to let us swagger and strut in the world is impeding our swagger and strut in the world.

As Selena Roberts wrote in her "Sports of the Times" column on Tuesday, American athletes in Athens are trying so hard to curb their usual chesty, preening, flag-waving behavior, in accordance with the U.S. Olympic Committee's fears about security in an anti-American climate, that it may be dulling the American team's edge.

"It does not reflect well on American culture, but some United States athletes need to pound their chests to get their hearts racing," Ms. Roberts writes. "Some need to scowl, stare and pump music into their heads to accompany their defiant strut before the start gun. Somehow, intimidating others is motivating to them."

Of the street-tough, hip-hop bad boy Allen Iverson's becoming a model of lackluster conformity in Athens, she wondered, "Who body-snatched this man?"

Even our warlike national anthem has been transformed, from blaring horns to peaceful, soothing strings.

[. . .]

Just as President Clinton entwined himself with the Olympics in Atlanta during his re-election campaign, President Bush has attempted to latch onto the Greek Olympics, running an ad in which the flags of Afghanistan and Iraq are shown as a narrator boasts that at "this Olympics, there will be two more free nations, and two fewer terrorist regimes." (Not to mention more terrorist acts in the world.)

But if the Olympics aren't working as a P.R. tool for the country, how can they work as a P.R. tool for the president?

"The Americans are groping for an identity," Ms. Roberts muses. "Who are they without their trademark 'tude?"

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld thought they could change the American identity by invading Iraq, that they could toughen up our 'tude and remove the lingering post-Vietnam skittishness about force and the "blame America first" psychology.

They thought our shock-and-awe war would change America's image, adding some muscularity that would make Arab foes cower and the world bow down to the U.S. as an unassailable hyperpower.

The vice president and the defense chief have changed our identity and image in the world - but not in the way they envisioned.

[. . .]

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