Why did Obama snub the European leaders in Paris?

From our perspective, the journalists who hide a central element of the story are betraying their trade, betraying the profession. We understand that not every media is satirical, and that these cartoons are pretty punchy, but without them one just CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE STORY.

...Since these are the images the gunmen wanted to stop, the surviving free press is obliged to deny the killers that victory. No other gesture can show that we refuse to be cowed by their crime. By repeating Charlie Hebdo’s action, we would demonstrate our resistance to the edict the terrorists sought to enforce on pain of death. We show that Charlie Hebdo was not alone.

There is an appealing simplicity to that stance, but it rests on faulty logic. The key point is this: support for a magazine’s inalienable right to make its own editorial judgments does not commit you to echo or amplify those judgments. Put another way, defending the right of someone to say whatever they like does not oblige you to repeat their words.

Much of Charlie's content is, alas, sadly racist.

In 1970 came the famous moment of Charlie's creation. Two dramatic events were dominating the news: a terrible fire at a discotheque which killed more than 100 people; and the death of former President Gen Charles de Gaulle.

Hara-Kiri led its edition with a headline mocking the general's death: "Bal tragique a Colombey - un mort", meaning "Tragic dance at Colombey [de Gaulle's home] - one dead."

The subsequent scandal led to Hara-Kiri being banned. Its journalists promptly responded by setting up a new weekly - Charlie Hebdo.

Lustig Andrei wrote:

Much of Charlie's content is, alas, sadly racist.

I would not say so; they satirise everybody, without fear or favour. They are not Der Stürmer.

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Press freedom has never been taken to mean that we can publish anything we like. Legal constraints aside, editors have always taken account of society’s wider sensibilities in deciding where to draw the line. When it comes to physical threats, they also have to show concern for their staff. It was a point well made by the Independent’s editor, Amol Rajan, who said he wished he could, in time-honoured fashion, have published. But, out of duty to his staff, his self-censorship had been necessary to “balance principle with pragmatism”.

There was another balancing act, however, which gets to the heart of this dilemma. Should British editors ever carry material, whatever the circumstances, that they would not normally publish? At a “Je suis Charlie” seminar staged by the Guardian last Thursday, the paper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, explained there were “offensive” Charlie Hebdo cartoons “that the Guardian would never in the normal run of events publish”. It was all very well to defend the magazine’s right to exercise its freedom and right to offend – including what Rusbridger called its “ethos and values” – but that could not be the defining issue for another publication.
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Exactly. They fired Siné (himself a good cartoonist who went on to found Siné Hebdo) because there was a hint of antisemitism in one of his columns. I don't remember the precise words but they were indeed nasty.

Charlie Hebdo was and remains a proud anti-racist newspaper. To call it racist is at best misinformed, at worse malevolent.

Quote:

Charlie Hebdo was and remains a proud anti-racist newspaper. To call it racist is at best misinformed, at worse malevolent.

Yes, but we Americans are by and large not very well informed, or bright. I have no doubt but that the majority of Americans do not support the publishing of such matterial, largely on our opinions that it is racist and spreads hate. Obama going would have been a political problem for him at home with his base, as it is largely the American left that supports suppression of speech that does not advance their utopian dreams.