Why did Obama snub the European leaders in Paris?

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.

What CANNOT be done in the US is mocking religion so outrageously.

I for one will start to have some confidence that America is on the mend when our comedy gets better, when jokes are no longer filtered through the thought police.

A comic in the US can be has outrageous as he wants and those he offends can be out outspoken as they want in condemning it

One reason why the Charlie cartoons have not been reprinted here is that most people would consider them highly offensive, (They're available online easily enough and have been posted on FaceBook, Twitter and elsewhere.) I will defend the magazine's right to print whatever it wants; that does not mean that I necessarily endorse their point of view. Much of Charlie's content is, alas, sadly racist.

Obama’s response to these crises—or, you could say, his method of leadership—has been surprisingly consistent. He has a legendarily, almost fanatically placid temperament. He has now spent eight years, counting from the start of his first presidential campaign, keeping his head while others were losing theirs, and avoiding rhetorical overreach at the risk of underreach. A few months ago, the crisis was the Ebola outbreak, and Obama faced a familiar criticism: He had botched the putatively crucial “performative” aspects of his job. “Six years in,” BusinessWeek reported, “it’s clear that Obama’s presidency is largely about adhering to intellectual rigor—regardless of the public’s emotional needs.”

I for one will start to have some confidence that America is on the mend when our comedy gets better, when jokes are no longer filtered through the thought police.

“It’s fair to say that we should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there,” Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said at his daily briefing with reporters at the White House.

Asked his response to critics who say a person with more prominence than the United States ambassador to France should have attended, he said: “We agree.”

But Claudine Ripert-Landler, the head of communications for President François Hollande of France, said that Mr. Obama had not snubbed the march.

“President Obama supported France in their common struggle against terrorism,” she said on Monday, adding that Mr. Obama’s visit to the French embassy was “a rather exceptional gesture.”

“Mr. Obama’s attentions have been very important to Mr. Hollande,” she said.

Mr. Earnest declined to say whether the president had considered attending the march himself or considered sending Vice President Joseph R. Biden, or to detail the conversations that led to the decision not to do so. But he cited scheduling and security concerns as playing a part.

“The security requirements around a presidential visit, or even a vice-presidential visit are onerous,” Mr. Earnest said, noting that security would have had to secure a large outdoor area, potentially making it harder for other people to attend. “It would have been very difficult to do so without significantly impacting the ability of common citizens to participate.”

He also said, "We’re talking about a march that came together with essentially 36 hours notice.”

The absence of Mr. Obama or any other senior United States official in the wake of the shootings of 17 people there in attacks last week at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and at a kosher supermarket — the American ambassador to France, Jane D. Hartley, participated in the rally — prompted questions from Republican lawmakers and some foreign policy analysts who said there should have been a prominent American leader on hand for the most striking show of solidarity in the West against Islamic extremism since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

the attempts by politicians to anoint themselves with the sacred myrrh of freedom of expression Charlie style are pretty pathetic.