A roundup of foreign media response to the opening ceremonies of the Salt Lake Olympiad, courtesy of the AP and ESPN. A taste:

While Americans gave the Winter Olympic opening ceremony red, white and blue raves, some members of the foreign press were critical of the festivities’ patriotic overtones.

Most of their criticism was about the tie-ins to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, especially the procession of the flag recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center.

‘This is wrong,’ Hafez Dahi, sports writer for Al-Siyassah daily newspaper in Kuwait, said as he watched part of the ceremony with friends back home. ‘This is supposed to be just sports.’

Please don’t take this the wrong way, Hafez, but fuck you. The Olympics are about national unity and good-natured international competition, not bobsledding or slalom skiing. If you’re interested in covering a multicultural love-in, go stake out the headquarters of the United Colors of Benetton and snap a few racy undercover photos of interoffice light petting sessions…

‘This is wrong,’ Hafez Dahi, sports writer for Al-Siyassah daily newspaper in Kuwait, said. ‘This is supposed to be just clothing and apparel’

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