This past Sunday, world leaders marched in solidarity in Paris against the terror attack on the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead. The leader who was missing from this gathering of world leaders is none else than President Barack Obama.
Obama’s absence from the Paris march against terrorists has not only been noticed widely but criticized. It was a time when the world literally united against terrorism and for the right of freedom of speech. Why was President Obama missing? What message it sent to the international community?
US News published a short post about criticism of Obama’s absence from the Paris rally. A reader’s opinion piece in an Alabama paper called Obama’s absence at Paris demonstration “inexcusable.” The reader thought that the President’s absence probably sent the message that he was afraid to attend the rally for security reasons.
NY Daily News analyzed Obama’s silence prior to his now [in]famous absence for the Paris rally. The paper wrote of the US President: “From the day of the massacre, he has been practically invisible.”
The most vigrous slamming of the President and the White House admin probably came from former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino who, on Fox News, responded to the White House’s rationale of unsatisfactory security measures at the Paris rally. Bongino called such rationale “disingenuous” and asked whether it was some “character issue” in the White House. He also expressed the feeling that the President probably just wanted to watch football instead of attending the rally but the white house is dishonest using the security excuse to save the President’s face.
