You know there’s a problem when France calls a protest against radical Islam and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas agrees to attend but the leader of the free world is too busy. President Barack Obama did not attend Sunday’s “anti-terrorism unity rally” in Paris, making him one a handful of NATO leaders to ignore French President Francois Hollande’s invitation. On Thursday, two days after the attack on the offices of French newspaper Charlie Hebdo by radical Islamic terrorists, Obama visited the French embassy in Washington. The next day, he claimed that the United States was “ready to provide any possible assistance to France to help the country overcome the consequences of terrorist attacks in Paris.” Any possible assistance that didn’t involve the president actually flying to France, apparently. Leaders from Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and Ukraine had all reportedly managed to clear their calendars in order to attend the rally. Vladimir Putin was absent, but Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov planned to lead Russia’s delegation in the wake of the deadliest attack on French soil in over fifty years, according to Tass. Even Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu would be there, in addition — less surprisingly — to Benjamin Netanyahu, according to published reports. But no John Kerry, no Joe Biden, no Eric Holder … and certainly no Barack Obama. Hey, it’s hard to play golf on Air Force One while it crosses the Atlantic. conservativetribune/obama-defied-anti-islam-protest/
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 23:16:00 +0000