Fox News has made big play of this. (Now there's a surprise. Can't wait for Bill 'no spin zone' O'Reilly tonight )
The most interesting point to emerge was that the players, by dint of representing the Bridge Federation, are bound to honour the code of the Olympic Games (that's in the small print). The Olympic code is that the games are non-political ;read 'meant to be'; and participants are not to use them politically or to make political statements.That was the somewhat desperate reasoning of that Federation's lawyer.
No, they shouldn't be punished,just ignored.
My thoughts were 'only in America' It must be something to do with respecting the President, when making gestures like this is in some way 'unpatriotic'.If someone such as the world record holder and winner of the NY marathon, Paula Radcliffe ( a lot more famous and better publicised than any bridge player)had held a placard saying 'I didn't vote for Tony Blair' on winning a race nobody else would have taken any notice.We'd just think her a little eccentric.
The Dixie Chicks got a mention too.Now that was a furore that nobody here could begin to comprehend either.If the Beatles, no respecters of politicians or people in authority,made critical statements like that one of the Dixie Chicks' we'd have been saying 'Well, that's the way they are. If they think that let them'
)
It must be something to do with respecting the President, when making gestures like this is in some way 'unpatriotic'.If someone such as the world record holder and winner of the NY marathon, Paula Radcliffe ( a lot more famous and better publicised than any bridge player)had held a placard saying 'I didn't vote for Tony Blair' on winning a race nobody else would have taken any notice.We'd just think her a little eccentric. 
