Obama AWOL at Paris solidarity demonstration
A lot of world leaders attended the largest demonstration in French history, with one conspicuously absent (and no mention of that fact by the Times). Obama didn’t even send a representative such as Biden or Kerry, although the Secretary of State would have been a natural, since he speaks French:
The organizers said the rally was to show support for freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and to reinforce the message that France and the French would not be cowed by terrorists.
Officials from across Europe and elsewhere, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey, were in Paris to attend the rally.
In a rare display of unity, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel also participated.
If security was tight enough for Netanyahu, it ought to have been tight enough for Obama or another US official.
Remember this event attended by Obama? That was deemed important enough, although security was almost non-existent.
The absence from the Paris rally was unusual enough for CNN to comment on it:
Kerry was in India, attending an entrepreneurship summit with new Prime Minister Narendra Modi — with whom the United States is hoping to develop much closer trade ties.
Instead, the United States was represented by U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley.
Attorney General Eric Holder was also in Paris, attending a security summit on combating terrorism. He recorded interviews that appeared on several U.S. news outlets Sunday, but was not spotted at the unity march.
No one from the administration would speak on record about the U.S. representation at the march.
This is on the order of a snub—Holder was there, but didn’t attend? The message is unmistakeable.
“The organizers said the rally was to show support for freedom of the press and freedom of speech”
Clearly a snub but a rare moment of honesty and entirely consistent with an administration that neither supports freedom of the press nor freedom of speech.
It does seem strange that Obama didn’t go or send someone more prominent, but looking at this list of who attended, I see that Canada sent its public safety minister. And I don’t see Australia anywhere on the list. Maybe this was considered primarily an “old world” event?
Republicans should have sent a delegation.
Meant to add above that Canada’s prime minister has been very outspoken about fighting jihadism.
“This is on the order of a snub–Holder was there, but didn’t attend? The message is unmistakeable.”
A snub indeed! When I heard Eric Holder was in Paris, I naturally assumed he would attend. This is baaad.
Golf game or football on TV.
I can’t even go there now, with Obama and his ruling gang. It just angers me; it’s pointless and I’m helpless.
But I have to say, as well, that an awful lot about this fucking march is disgusting. Fuck these “Je suis Charlie” liars and hypocrites.
Documentary: The Great Louis Zamperini – the “Unbroken” Story
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2015/01/documentary-great-louis-zamperini.html
Now, if Bush or some other president didn’t go I would very well think it might be due to security/logistic reasons.
But, given Obama’s track record of speaking out for those “who could look my son” thugs and saying little to nothing about former Ambassador Shirley Temple Black or American hero Chris Kyle I will think the worse about Obama on this.
So, I will venture a guess in saying there must not have been any black people killed in the attacks – just some “typical white guys” and a couple of Jews. Nothing for Obama to get worked up over; he needs his down time to relax after being on vacation in Hawaii. He doesn’t need to do any more travel to add more to his jet lag.
Disappointing, but not surprising. I think we’ll see more of this now that there are no more elections to prevent Obama from revealing his true feelings, true intentions as president. Might as well have sent a note that rephrased his 2013 statement at the UN: (Obama’s) America does not stand with any country who would allow the slander of the prophet of Islam.
The next two years are going to be (painfully) interesting based on the his behavior since the 2014 midterm election.
Ugh – that’s his 2012 UN statement.
“Clearly a snub but a rare moment of honesty and entirely consistent with an administration that neither supports freedom of the press nor freedom of speech.”
O supports freedom of press … as long as it’s favorable!
O supports freedom of speech … as long as it’s favorable!
Otherwise … End of story … for MSM
Photo evidence. He was there.
https://twitter.com/HollyRFisher/status/554369212203155459/photo/1
They have picked their side and it isn’t the side of humanity.
What do people think “enemies of humanity” meant if not them?
Attending the march means one supports WHAT exactly? With support by Hamas, Hezbollah, PLO/Fatah, this march is a complete joke and means nothing. (Unfortunately, I don’t think that true opposition to Islamist terrorism was the reason Obama didn’t attend.)
This is one of the many problems that the United States. Barry is what goes for leadership anymore.
He will be gone in about 2 years, but we we will be stuck with the millions who elected him to two terms.
Our president should have sent Hirsi as his official rep, with several American football players as her guard.
Our president should have insisted that Hirsi speak to the multitude.
Our president should have insisted that Hirsi be permitted to speak the truth.
But then, our president needs to deal in islamists and islamism, not reality.
And actual Americans do not have a president who represents them atm, not that a Bush or some such would be any different.
nobody wanted that anti-semite there.
miklos000rosza Says:
January 11th, 2015 at 4:10 pm
Agreed. I would much rather see angry mobs burning down mosques. Because that is what is called for. To hell with this “Coexist” crap.
Our president should have sent Hirsi as his official rep, with several American football players as her guard.
She needs professional body guards, not NFL types.
Yeah, Obama should have sent Hirsi, but instead he sends Holder, who has been working hard to make sure every proposed mosque is constructed, whether the community wants it or not (e.g. Henrico, VA; Lilburn, GA; St. Anthony, MN). He’s also been busy making sure Muslims are protected from NYPD monitoring and exempt from NSA spying. Makes even more sense that Holder would fly all the way to Paris (at taxpayer expense) and yet manage to miss the rally. Amplifies the snub, no?
If Hussein wants to send you on a diplomatic mission, I would think twice before accepting. Ambassador Stevens got sent to Benghazi and look what happened to him.
You might become the next Sacrifice for the Left’s Islamic allies.
Obama is a marxist and a muslim. What else is there to say?
I think LTEC hits the nail on the head.
Show up in solidarity to what?
I saw a quote from a Charlie Hebdo cartoonist who said, “We vomit on all these people who suddenly say they are our friends.”
I think he (LSET) is the only one not rushing to use this as yet another example of this administration’s boorish incompetence and cluelessness. I don’t need to trash Obama and his ilk over this, there are plenty of far more substantive things to detest him for.
Over on his blog, I think LSET very accurately observed that
I think this applies to this most ideological of administrations too.
I feel sympathy towards the spouses and children of the victims, otherwise screw these fools. I stand far more closely in support of the police and possibly military who hunted down and eradicated these vermin. Not some empty political Kumbaya kabuki designed to make everyone feel better about allowing this cancer to exist, grow and metastasize in their midst while they mouth platitudes about not hatin nothin but hatred.
The musloid vanguard, and understand they are not the fringe, but the vanguard, do not care about coexistence. They do not care about your sensibilities. They are not going to stop until enough of them are killed that they loose the stomach for cowardly murder.
Why would he choose solidarity when he has no such intentions. He is on the other side. A lapdog can only have one true master. He has chosen the Brotherhood.
Agree that because Holder was already there, it was a snub. Also not surprised that Althouse thinks “that’s weird”. After all these years she still can’t see the real Obama. Stupid smart person that trips over herself proving how enlightened and sophisticated her thinking is.
Sending an empty chair for the ambassador to carry would have been appropriate for the occasion.
Apparently, Obama et al are concerned that they will be associated with “bitter clingers”. They expect this group to express hate and act violently to oppose Europe’s diversification.
Perhaps they are right. Neutralizing effective organization, beginning with debasing families, tribes, etc. is an effective means to reduce runaway conflicts, and, as a corollary, to enhance management of the population.
That said, they don’t offer much credit to human morality. Then again, their reconciliation of individual dignity and intrinsic value has lead them to support premeditated abortion of wholly innocent human lives for selfish and state causes. I disagree with this reconciliation, especially with the casual debasement of human life, and I do not, cannot, trust their motives.
It should be observed that immigration has far exceeded the rate of assimilation and integration. This only exacerbates the low reproduction rate of native Europeans. Hebdo is the latest victim of these policies, where the outcome is entirely predictable, and can be reasonably assumed to occur by design. The same is happening in America, but the land is larger, and while the population is smaller, it is also better appointed.
Good luck, Europeans. The threat has an internal origin.
Obama. Leading from behind, uniting the world.
Why would “President I Watch ESPN Every Morning” get up from in front of the TV on a NFL Playoff weekend? Silly.
where the outcome is entirely predictable, and can be reasonably assumed to occur by design.
It is by design. British MPs and Minister of Integration in Sweden have openly admitted it or hinted to it.
Maybe, he wasn’t invited? It is said that Bibi wasn’t invited either but that he inserted himself anyway.
If BHO was invited and declined, it does underscore the perverse filter through which the administration views the world.
rickl :”Agreed. I would much rather see angry mobs burning down mosques. Because that is what is called for. To hell with this “Coexist” crap.”
Being a little dense this morning, I’m not sure if a /sarc/ was intended or not.
The problem I have is that on an intellectual level, I agree it is desirable to coexist with Islam. But on a more basic gut level I’m not sure that is possible. And that is where my internal struggle is.
Chamberlain and others simply thought they could coexist with Hitler. They couldn’t. FDR thought he could coexist with the Soviet Union and a lot of innocent blood was shed waiting for Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul II.
I know this will offend some but I view Islam as a cancer on the human population. And please, I’m talking globally not locally with regards to actions and effect.
A cancer starts out with a mutant/defective cell that grows and adds other cells. Gradually a mass is formed of similar cells. This mass of cells draws nourishment from the normal cells. The normal cells are going about their business taking in nourishment, getting rid of waste, and adding to the overall strength of the whole body. The cancer group does none of this- it feeds off the normal cells while it grows in size and mass. Eventually the body as a whole starts losing weight and going down hill. When they go into remove the cancer, do they take out some good cells too? Is it right to remove the good cells with the bad? What would you tell the surgeon? Make sure you don’t remove any good cells? Or would you tell the surgeon to take as much as necessary to remove the cancer?
It is like the people that bitch and moan that it was not right to imprison the Japanese, Germans and Italians during WWII. I’m of the opinion that given the information at that point in time the Govt made the right decision. What you will not hear the armchair generals that are offended by this tell you is that the bill that gave each imprisoned detainee $20K only applied to the Japanese-Americans. The detained Italians/Germans received nothing. If this was so offense and wrong, shouldn’t all have gotten the $$?
So I have to ask the question- Could we have co-existed with those axis powers back in WWII? Was it wrong to err on the side of caution when dealing with immigrants/naturalized citizens? I tend to say No on the 1st question and ?? on the 2nd.
I do know that continuing to have unlimited access for Muslims to immigrate to the US to me is like giving a blood transfusion from a cancer patient. Even though 99.99% of the cells are good,does it make medical sense to do the transfusion?
After Pearl Harbor, the thought of co-existing with the Axis Powers was non-existent. The Axis Powers had no desire to co-exist with the Free World other than to facilitate their timetable. Is it any different now? What fruits has Modern Islam brought to the world?
I guess it is like the bible says about- You know the tree by the fruit it produces. I don’t simply see any good fruit coming from the tree of Islam.
Guess I’m one of those anti-Islam bigots.
But I still search for a common sense way to co-exist without capitulation to Islam. But I have not discovered that. Have a good day 🙂
I think Roger Kimball nails it.
Stop quibbling… he was there in spirit…
took an extra second of silence before hitting a golf ball
didnt you notice?
–Obama is an Islamist. It dovetails with his Marxism perfectly.
–Obama sides with the terrorists. He is an Islamist.
–Obama hates America and this was an opportunity to degrade America’s position in the world.
–Obama is a Jew hater. He sides with the Jew hating Muslims.
–Obama is completely alien to America’s history, tradition, values, principles.
It isn’t at all certain that if a Republican is elected in 2016 that the damage that has been done can be undone. Or worse that the Republican will have the will to do so.
I believe it is beneath the dignity of the our Chief Executive, The President of the United States, to engage in empty feel-good social solidarity claptrap demonstrations with a bunch of existentially pissant socialists whose social policies have brought this down on their own heads [ Meaning the leaders of the French Republic, not Charlie Hebdo]
But that is probably not why Obama didn’t attend.
Ron Fournier’s article in National Journal is titled “Obama’s Mistake is No Disgrace.”
Actually, the headline has it backwards; Obama’s disgrace is no mistake.
“It isn’t at all certain that if a Republican is elected in 2016 that the damage that has been done can be undone. Or worse that the Republican will have the will to do so.”
There is no damage that cannot be undone given the time and the money. The will? Now that’s a different matter altogether.
Indicative of Obama *hating America*
He never attended or commented on the 100th anniversary of the Gettysburg address, nor did he comment or attend (at Marylands Fort McHenry) a celebration of the Star Spangled banner, the 200th
anniversary of it’s authorship.
And during their *campaign* his wife made the bizzare
marxist remark “We have to change our history!”
Something the Commies are noted for doing, I guess that message is having some traction though, the
Lefties continually saying Southern racists that were all known to be Democrats have en mass left the donko party ( which created the KKK) and become Tea Party or Republicans. So I guess Michelle’s suggestion to change history was not so bizzare after all.
opps I think its 150 yrs on the gettysburg thingy !
(sorry lousy with math)
Obama is an open book.
What is more interesting to me are the European leaders. This march was an exercise in ass-covering and damage control. They were the ones who imported millions of aliens into their body politic, and everyone knows it.
There will be hell to pay at the next elections.
Difficult to tell if President Obama was excluded by his own choice, or by choice of the E.U. Members of Europe who attended, but exclusion there was……and that question ought to be answered as fully, and clearly as possible, by the group who excluded, not by the one excluded.
Maybe Obama thinks Charley Hebdo got what it deserved for “slandering the profit”. This is not a kind or decent person.
“prophet” not profit.This is so easy to do.
Where’s the “vote up” button for this one ?
Renminbi,
You are correct on both occasions. Remember “You didn’t build that”? He slanders “profit,” too.
Is there anything good about the Left’s alliance or the Islam’s Caliphate?
I mean, really.