The Olympics haven’t even started and already we’re being treated to trash talking and finger pointing.  This has nothing to do with the games themselves, but the fact the official U.S. Olympic teams outfits were made in China (insert gasp here).

You don’t hear a lot of agreement in Washington these days, but it appears everyone can agree outsourcing the making of the outfits to China was a bad idea.   Republican House Speaker John Boehner said that Ralph Lauren (who is the evil mastermind behind this sinister plot) should “know better”.  Senate Harry Reid from Nevada said “the uniforms should be put in a pile and burned” immediately conjuring heartwarming images of book burnings in Nazi Germany and burning Beatles records in the bible belt.

Interesting how politics can make force one to speak out of both sides one’s mouth.  Moving jobs to China is simply part of free enterprise and part of living in a global economy, but having an American company like Ralph Lauren manufacture uniforms to be worn by our Olympic athlete is simply un-American!  What’s a citizen to do?  Next thing you know, they’ll want to take away our iPhones!

Now before we go and burn Mr. Lauren in effigy (although one does wonder what he would wear to it), it’s important to remember that only 5% of clothing sold in the United States was actually made by Americans (that figure was 95% back in 1960).   Hindsight being 20/20, Ralph Lauren could have created a wonderful “Made In  America” campaign and had us all waving the flag, but than again, nobody seemed to care that the U.S. Uniforms for the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Utah were made in Canada.

Putting all that aide, I’m more irked that they will be wearing berets with strip of red, white and blue that looks more like the French flag (is that is supposed to invoke a feeling of Americana?).

And what’s up with the huge Ralph Lauren logo on the front the blazer?  Those makes soccer uniforms seem classy.  If we want to go down that road, why take a cue from NSCAR and sell multiple sponsorship logos?  Maybe we can use that money to bring down the nation debt.