White House: US should have sent other officials to Paris

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By JULIE PACE

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a rare public admission of error, the White House said Monday the U.S. should have sent a high-level official to an anti-terror march in Paris that was attended by more than 40 world leaders.

The Obama administration was represented Sunday by the U.S. ambassador to France, though Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris for security meetings.

"It's fair to say we should have sent someone with a higher profile," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. Secretary of State John Kerry was on a long-planned trip to India on Sunday but now will visit France later this week.

The White House appeared to have been caught off guard by both the display of international unity at the Paris march and the criticism of its decision to be represented only by Ambassador Jane Huntley. Monday's admission of error seemed aimed at blunting criticism that the decision was tone deaf or disrespectful of the long U.S. alliance with France, a country set on edge by three days of terror that resulted in 17 deaths.

FULL story at link.



U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at a press conference in Gandhinagar, India, Monday, Jan. 12, 2015. Kerry said he will travel to Paris this week for talks on countering extremist violence, following sharp criticism of the Obama administration for not sending a senior official to Sunday's rally for unity in Paris that was attended by some 40 world leaders and more than a million people. (AP PhotoRick Wilking, Pool)

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150112/us--france-attacks-united_states-033cb9a4e6.html

[arcane1]

1. Fuck that. Giving conservatives the moral high ground, and letting them pretend to like France?

[The Green Manalishi]

2. Agreed

Big mistake.
The President should have been there.
What the conservatives would or would not have done or said is of not matter.

[notadmblnd]

14. I thought we didn't like France anymore? Conservatives especially

Member when the French were opposed to war? We got so mad we renamed French Fries Freedom Fries. You remember don't ya?

I didn't get the memo that we had kissed and made up? And if we have, why didn't the Republican controlled House and Senate send anyone? They're part of this country too. No one was stopping them. The entire damn congress could have suited up and went tp Paris, yet where did they keep their asses? Why they kept them safe right here at home else they wouldn't be able to commence bitching when Obama didn't send someone they deemed good enough. Didn't they?

[24601]

17. United States foreign policy isn't implemented by Congress and shouldn't be. It's entirely

appropriate for Members of Congress to help represent our nation in coordination with the Executive Branch. But that requires White House or State Department engagement.

Nor do I favor Congress or the Courts striking out on the own when it comes to foreign policy. I don't believe anyone here sincerely believes that they should, and the venting is just political posturing.

[notadmblnd]

20. They would'nt have been going to Paris to implement foreign policy.

They would have been going to display their solidarity against terrorism.

Congress takes it upon themselves all the time to visit foreign countries. IIRC McCain and one of his cohorts went to Iraq and bought rugs at one time.

Here's a fairly recent article where he went to Syria to meet with rebels. I don't see any mention of the White House sending him. Do you?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/27/mccain-visits-rebels-in-syria/

[onehandle]

3. Giving Faux News the upper ground.

Stupid.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. STOOPID.

STOOPID STOOPID STOOPID.

[TwilightGardener]

5. I don't understand not sending Biden. He would have done it, gladly.

[Hekate]

6. I'm pleased they admitted they got it wrong. It has nothing to do with conservatives; they yap...

Conservatives yap continuously, but even a broken analog clock is right twice a day. Denying responsibility for one's own booboo just makes one look childish. Admit it and move on.

[oberliner]

13. Well said

Could not agree more.

[Journeyman]

7. Isn't that what we have a Vice President for? . . .

To attend funerals and weddings and generally do all those things the President would prefer to not do?

[Fred Sanders]

8. If the media clings to the fiction that the leaders actually marched with people of France, they

were there for a photo op and walked all of 30 seconds, what choice did they have?

If they had said that the leaders "march" was a phot op intended to mislead the public that they were actually at the event, how would that go over with America's infantile free press?

Move on......tempest in a tea party and media flaming pot.

But the fake imagery will live on. That has legs.

[840high]

15. It doesn't matter what they did - they

did show unity.

[LannyDeVaney]

9. Wouldn't matter what we did...

If the President had gone, that staged photo op picture with all the heads of state would be plastered all over the screen on every cable news network.

And anybody lower in the pecking order that the POTUS would draw the same reaction we see now.

The only way you don't hear a complaint from the US media is if we had/had not sent a white President. The rest is just noise.

Don't feed the trolls.

[ErikJ]

10. Why didnt at least Pres. Bush go?

Oh thats right, he wouldve been arrested!

[Laf.La.Dem.]

11. If the President went to Paris

FOX would be complaining about the $500,000,000 cost

[onecent]

16. Why does it matter now, Obama isn't running

again.....
I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, like you said....FOX would have loved it.... and we don't need or want FOX'S APPROVAL

[oberliner]

12. Agreed

Not worth getting all worked up about like the RW pundits and their ilk did, but I agree that it would've been better to send, for example, VP Biden or Sec of State Kerry.

[DeSwiss]

18. In some respects it makes perfect sense.

I mean at least we're being honest in our hypocrisy. We don't really champion free speech. We champion ''controlled-speech'' preferably uttered in ''free-speech zones.''

I mean this was a rally in support of the human right of free speech, right? So who are we to distract from that evolutionary act since we don't actually believe in those ideas? Have you seen teevee news lately? That is propaganda of the basest and crude kind. CorpoNews is not free speech.

We, are the ones who jail whistleblowers and prosecute reporters. We, are the ones who threaten other countries with sanctions for providing safe haven for THE WHISTLEBLOWER OF ALL TIME (thusfar).

We, are the ones who've intercepted the electronic data of countless millions of Europeans in search of ''terrorists'' and damn anyone who tries to stop us or to say that it is wrong. And we continue to do so until this very moment.

- No, in retrospect, not casting our dark shadow upon this affair is fitting. We don't belong to any group who believes in true freedom.

K&R

[Jesus Malverde]

19. Interesting...thanks!...nt