If there were one word to describe President Obama’s behavior in office, particularly in foreign affairs, it might be “detached.” It is hard to know his thought process in not attending the massive rally against Islamist jihad and anti-Semitism in Paris earlier this week — when 40 world leaders including President Francois Hollande of France, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas took to the streets of Paris to protest the barbarism of those forces. They joined up to three million people according to a French media estimate. One can only speculate as to President Obama’s reasoning, but some logic might go like this:
Those world leaders are not my peers. I have no peers. I am the president of the United States. I do not walk arm in arm with anyone. I do not like those optics. I will not compete on the world stage with other heads of state. I am not Charlie either. I am Barack Obama. Je suis Barack Obama.
The Europeans are a bunch of hypocrites. They invented colonialism. They took resources from their colonies and bled them without offering much in return. They disingenuously gave their language and way of governance but all they did was inflict misery on their possessions. Once the territories rose up, they sent in cartographers to divvy the places up — and those so-called borders are part of our woes today. What we are seeing is the blowback from colonialism. The French were notorious for treating their colonies badly and the British were no better. And the record of Germany in the twentieth century speaks for itself. There is no way I will join those people. Marching in the streets in the name of freedom — what a crowd of phonies. I really do not relate to their problems. I would rather focus on a $60 billion tuition-free community college program than link arms with them.
The French unfortunately did this to themselves with decades of misguided immigration policies. Other cities in Europe have the same problems as Paris. Marseille, Brussels, Amsterdam and London immediately come to mind where there are large Muslim populations susceptible to the call of jihad. And in France they say there are neighborhoods where not even the police will go — ghettos where Sharia law is practiced. They are called “Zones Urbaines Sensibles” of all things. France has a self-inflicted wound and this is their problem. The United States has bailed out these European countries too many times. They hate us when we lead, and they hate us when we don’t. That’s why I lead from behind. In fact, this time I am leading in absentia.
I can’t send Joe Biden, our vice president. He is a rhetorical disaster wrapped in a verbal catastrophe. He needs to be chaperoned 24/7 so he won’t say something ridiculous. I can’t ask Speaker John Boehner or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell because that would look like the Republicans are running Congress. Even though they are doing just that, I don’t want to publicly confirm it. I can’t ask Bill Clinton, our former president, because he is warm and charismatic and would upstage me. Unlike how they feel about me, much of the world sincerely likes and admires him. I also don’t think the world would like it if I asked my good friend, Warren Buffett, who is a great American. Even though he supports me as president, the message of billionaire capitalism is just not a good one at a time like this.
The press is no longer a watchdog. They want access to me so they have to cover for me and suppress what others see as my administration’s failures in governance. Mainstream media have really been just a miniature poodle. This time I may take some flak from them, but it shall pass.
It is unconscionable that President Obama did not join the march in Paris, or at least send a high level envoy. Why did the president not order John Kerry to detour to Paris from India — the secretary of state has spoken French in France on occasion. Doubtless many Americans are angered while others are quietly ashamed. Chewing gum at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and taking a selfie at Nelson Mandela’s memorial were acts not befitting a head of state. But this is much, much worse. Even the White House has admitted an error of judgment — also raising the question of what kind of advisers the president has and whether they have any guts at all.
The staff of Charlie Hebdo, whose sense of humor and politics are offensive to many but whose right to free speech is deemed sacrosanct, have placed a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad on their first edition since the horrendous attacks in Paris. They have guts all right.
