Why was the United States the only major democracy not to send a high-level representative to Paris?
There was a large rally there in favor of justice after the deaths of so many innocent people. You may have heard about it, although at least some people in Washington act like they did not not hear about it until after the rally was a huge success without them.
Was it a concern that there would be no insurance coverage if something bad happened at the rally? It is my understanding that the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act extends coverage only to acts of terrorism in the territorial United States, so maybe insurance coverage was a concern and that is why they did not send any high-level people from the United States Government.
Maybe, but that did not stop other high-level people, even heads of state, from attending the rally, such as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Chancellor of Germany.
So concern about insurance coverage was probably not the reason.
Was it concern that the Secret Service could not protect President Obama or Vice President Biden or whoever else the U.S. might send to the rally? The Secret Service has not been doing a very good job lately that is certain.
Perhaps that is the reason, but the Mossad was there to protect the Prime Minister of Israel, and MI5 or MI6 or whatever was there for David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the U.K., and whatever the German secret police is called these days was there to protect Mrs. Merkel, the Bundeskanzler.
So, maybe the concern was that the Secret Service could not protect anybody at the rally, even Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States who was already in Paris attending a quickly-summoned security meeting, but who did not attend the rally. But surely the U.S. could have borrowed (“outsourced”?) from the other countries’ police agencies, so that was probably not the reason nobody high up attended the rally to represent the U.S.
Parenthetically, if you are the Attorney General of the United States, would it not occur to you to suggest that it would be a good idea to attend a huge, news-making rally in support of people who were killed just a few days ago by injustice? So, if he suggested that he join the march for justice since he was in Paris anyway, who said “no”? Maybe we should change the question from “why” to “who,” and perhaps we can figure out why no high-ranking United States official attended the rally in Paris even though a high-ranking official from the United States was already there but did not attend.
So far, we do not know who it was. The Obama White House has had to acknowledge the obvious here, that a top U.S. official – someone, anyone – should have marched for justice in Paris. But so far, the White House has refused to say who it was that made the decision not to. We are told only that President Obama did not make the decision. See Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “White House Acknowledges Error in Not Sending a Top Official to March in Paris,” p. A12, col. 1 (New York Times Nat’l ed., January 13, 2015). That means somebody else made the decision for him since he did not make the decision himself. Who has that kind of power in the Obama White House?
Whoever thought that it was a good idea to be absent from the march in Paris has to be someone who has no diplomatic experience. No-one with diplomatic experience could ever have looked at the optics of this potentially huge rally ahead of time, and decided that it would be a good thing not to be photographed participating in it – which is exactly what happened as far as the United States is concerned, of course.
It has to be someone who instead thinks of Barack Obama only, someone who thinks that a photograph of him or of the vice president or of the attorney general walking in France would not be good for business as they say. This would also nearly by definition have to be someone political and in Washington, D.C. since only politicians in Washington, D.C. could think such a thing.
Finally, it has to be someone older or who at least feels protective of President Obama.
Valerie Jarrett, was that you?
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