Much of the talk after the massive march for free speech in Paris this weekend was the absence of President Barack Obama with other world leaders. It was an embarrassment for our country and slap in the face to the French. Instead, the Administration sent Jane Hartley, one of its bundlers turned diplomats who were given a major appointment for raising money for the President. Even though Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris that very day, he did not even stick around to march with other leaders. The Administration is now admitting that it blew it but there is a mystifying lack of basic competence and foresight at the White House at such moments. Rather than attend the rally, Obama stated in town for a photo op with the San Antonio Spurs. It was a shameful image to leave with French. This was not the only such controversy over who was present and who was not.
In what is an astonishing was the outburst from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the appearance of Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu. The French had asked Netanyahu not to attend but he insisted that he would be there. The French then arranged for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to attend as well. Erdogan however, lashed out at Netanyahu for “daring” to attend an anti-terror solidarity march as a leader of “state terrorism” against the Palestinians. He demanded that Netanyahu “give an account for the children, women you massacred.”
Many civil libertarians could ask for the same account from Erdogan who has rolled back on civil liberties, particularly free speech and free press rights in Turkey. For Erdogan to attend a free speech rally is like seeing former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad march at a gay rights rally.
Erdogan’s appearance only deepens the question of what the French are marching for in a country that has led the effort to regulate and curtail speech, including years of threats directed against the victims of these acts.
Several posters here assert that this was a deliberate snub, and not a gaffe. Is there any evidence for this?
There are two (at least) postulations for this.
1. It is a deliberate snub because the Administration (Obama) is in bed with the Muslims and refuses to admit that there is even such a thing as Radical Islam that is perpetrating terrorism world wide. So by not attending he appeases the Radicals and snubs France as a symbol of Western Judeo Christian society.
OR
2. The Obama Administration is completely clueless as to what they should be doing Diplomatically either internationally or domestically. The Administration is run by ignorant children and an absentee President. All of whom are narrowly focused on their own personal ideologies and have made multiple mistakes in the past and will continue to stumble around, irritating our allies, pi$$ing off our friends and creating even more enemies than we already have. They are a bunch of rank amateurs who haven’t the slightest idea of what they are doing and are going to get us all killed.
Personally……I go with both theorems
Evil AND Stupid,
Several posters here assert that this was a deliberate snub, and not a gaffe. Is there any evidence for this?
If you specified who you had in mind, they could answer you directly, but I’ll speculate for you.
How about the fact that Eric Holder was in Paris and did not attend the rally?
He easily outranks the US ambassador.
“The buck stops here” plaque used by the last good Dem president is buried in Obama’s closet.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/regretful-white-house-acknowledges-mistake-on-paris-march-1421090356
Jay,
Unless he’s changed his spots, I’m going for “not this”. Of course this big of a screw up would warrant someone getting fired, but then again, this is not to be expected from this administration.
Several posters here assert that this was a deliberate snub, and not a gaffe. Is there any evidence for this?
Hollande is fine, their soulmate tax crazy socialists. The very popular Obama on the milk carton says how THE FRENCH PEOPLE think about it. Why the hell are we even discussing this w/ cultists. The intransigent Obama ADMITTED he screwed up!! This is insane.
Nick, you are unbelievable!
Funny how the French are fine with his not being there
Le Mot du Jour: politesse
Jeff, LJC, et al;
Demonstrate some courage and proclaim: “the Obama Administration did the right thing”. Don’t hide behind these straw men statements; be proud of your leader and prove you stand with his handling of this issue.
The pretzel logic of cultists here is fascinating to watch. Maybe they should volunteer as Secret Service because I’m not sure all the agents are willing to take a bullet for this loser. These cultists do here on a daily basis.
Well said Leej! Conservatives have no moral standing to criticize Obama for not empathizing with the country that they would not step foot in.
The administration avoids using the word terrorism. It never refers to “Islamic terroriism.” Given that track record, it should be no surprise that no senior administration official attended a rally against Islamic terrorism.
“I’m conflicted about the gingerly approach this administration takes to acknowledging that the “violent extremism” currently preoccupying policymakers in the West is Islam/Islamist extremism. Yes, the administration is sometimes excessively delicate in avoiding the I word and leaving the impression that some amorphous “violent extremism” is the threat of the hour.
But I also have some sympathy for the administration. Like George W. Bush before him, President Obama wants to repudiate the libel — subscribed to by too many Americans — that violence is intrinsic to Islam. One way to avoid any such implication is to avoid mentioning “Islam” or “Islamic” at all in high-profile pronouncements.”http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-obama-islam-terrorism-20150112-story.html
Interesting since the other post on using the term muslim terrorists has many comments with the term being seen as slamming all Muslims with one brush.
This president cannot win it seems. He uses it and it is seen as slamming all, he doesn’t and the right comes out and says he is a muslim sympathizer.
(and I too am getting the sign in and security certificate bad, )
“A decade ago, Republicans in Congress were renaming French fries “freedom fries” and French toast “freedom toast” because of that country’s refusal to support the Iraq war. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld belittled the “old Europe” French, President George W. Bush mocked an American reporter for speaking French to the French president, and conservative critics called the French “weasels,” “appeasers” and worse. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, was ridiculed by the Bush administration for being “too French” and looking French, and his fluency in French was a liability in the campaign.
And now, that very same Monsieur Kerry, the secretary of state, and his boss, President Obama, are being condemned by conservatives for . . . not being nice enough to the French”…
Largely absent from this condemnation of the American government’s slight of the French were the French themselves. French President François Hollande said Obama had been “very present” in the response to last week’s attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish market….
But the notion that Kerry, of all people, was slighting the French is a bit incroyable. The son of a diplomat, Kerry has close family in France and learned the language at a Swiss boarding school. After the initial massacre in Paris last week, he addressed the shooting at an appearance with the Polish foreign minister, in both English and in French. French TV channel TF1 said that Kerry’s “poignant statement in French” would “go down in history.” The French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy said on CNN that Kerry’s French statement “is a great moment of brotherhood and solidarity.”
The conservatives are guilty of a bit of inconsistency, if not hypocrisy, in criticizing the Obama administration for snubbing a people they not long ago called cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-republicans-inconsistent-attacks-on-obamas-paris-response/2015/01/12/bd223d0a-9aa8-11e4-96cc-e858eba91ced_story.html
(I have said before that the professor seems to have a dislike for the president. I wonder if when he referred to other ambassadors in other administrations who also got their jobs by being a help to the pres, by donations, or whatever, when they represented the country at functions he was equally snarky as he is in this post: ” Instead, the Administration sent Jane Hartley, one of its bundlers turned diplomats who were given a major appointment for raising money for the President.” )
Funny how the French are fine with his not being there but the right, and Professor Turley find it an abhorrence.
calypso,
Had they put an empty chair on the carton, I believe even the “conservatives” that ‘theoretically’ hate the French would applaud.
Margaret Cho did a mocking of a North Korean on the Golden Globes. You could cut the tension in the PC crowd w/ a knife.
“Would you want the President of North Korea to attend s 9/11 memorial?”
Jeff,
I would; chained to Dennis Rodman.
calypso, LOL! Our prez on a milk carton as a missing child. The world now sees the loser we elected. Only the cultists remain. “Ignorance is bliss.”
You haven’t been reading European news, Jeff. The media there is VERY upset: “America Snubs Historic Paris Rally” as a headline, for instance. Or a new French internet meme showing a “missing” Obama on the back of a milk carton saying, “Je suis le president Obama. Avez-vous me voir?” (Have you seen me?)
Unforced error, I think. Although the hypothesis of some here that Obama was less worried about offending French sensibilities than Muslim certainly seems plausible too.
Olly, To show the mindlessness of cultists like FogDog, he is defending Obama when HE ADMITTED he was wrong!! But, as others have said, this prez is sticking w/ appeasement and not using the words, “Islamist terrorists.” Watch his latest Baghdad Bob in the WH press room. He always says, “extremists who invoke Islam.” WTF?? We are going to pay dearly for this appeasement. There will be a backlash that will hurt innocent Muslims. See it coming. That’s the way this works.
I was not making any reference to Obama. That is your fixation. I was simply pointing out the fact that the French are the Europeans that conservatives love to hate. Would you want the President of North Korea to attend s 9/11 memorial?