From the first Morning Jolt of the week:
Why Didn’t Obama Join the World Leaders’ March for Free Expression and to Oppose Islamism? Because He Thought It Was ‘Leaders Only’
The New York Daily News this morning rips President Obama for not going to the rally in Paris — nor Vice President Biden, Attorney General Holder, nor Secretary of State John Kerry.
No high-level official from the administration came to the rally sponsored by the French embassy in Washington, D.C., either. And remember Obama’s slow, soporific comments earlier in the week, where he sounded like he was groggy from cold medicine.
Look at that lineup of world leaders — French president François Hollande, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Council president Donald Tusk, and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas — plus Prime MinisterDavid Cameron of Great Britain and the King of Jordan — and imagine how much more powerful it would be if the leader of the free world — remember when we called a U.S. president that? – were there, walking arm in arm with the rest of them.
This is not some right-wing assessment. Ask Jake Tapper:
A man and his son came over to me holding a sign saying “I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” beseeching me to share their message with the American people. And world leaders were standing together amidst a procession that included Francois Hollande of France, Angela Merkel of Germany, David Cameron of Great Britain, Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, along with the leaders of Mali, Jordan and Turkey.
It is no small thing for the king of Jordan, a direct descendent of the Prophet Mohammed, to march in a rally prompted by the murders of people who mocked Islam as well as of innocent Jews — all of whom were killed by Islamic extremists.
The United States, which considers itself to be the most important nation in the world, was not represented in this march — arguably one of the most important public demonstrations in Europe in the last generation — except by U.S. Ambassador Jane Hartley, who may have been a few rows back. I didn’t see her. Even Russia sent Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
I say this as an American — not as a journalist, not as a representative of CNN — but as an American: I was ashamed.
I certainly understand the security concerns when it comes to sending President Barack Obama, though I can’t imagine they’re necessarily any greater than sending the lineup of other world leaders, especially in aggregate.
But I find it hard to believe that collectively President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Attorney General Eric Holder — who was actually in France that day for a conference on counterterrorism — just had no time in their schedules on Sunday. Holder had time to do the Sunday shows via satellite but not to show the world that he stood with the people of France?
There was higher-level Obama administration representation on this season’s episodes of “The Good Wife” on CBS.
Burn.
Wait, wait, we’re doing something:
In the wake of terrorist attacks in France and elsewhere, the Obama administration announced Sunday it will host a Summit on Countering Violent Extremism next month.
The Feb. 18 event will “highlight domestic and international efforts to prevent violent extremists and their supporters from radicalizing, recruiting, or inspiring individuals or groups in the United States and abroad to commit acts of violence,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
As to criticism about the lack of a senior official at Sunday’s March, Kerry said, “I really think that this is sort of quibbling a little bit in the sense that our Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was there and marched, our ambassador was there and marched, many people from the embassy were there and marched.”
Got that? We’re quibbling!