[HotHunt]

Why not? Every other leader managed to get there on short notice. Whether this was just a sham march or not, the optics are terrible for the US by Obama's absence. It says that we don't care about the war on terror and the people killed by the terrorists. The world stood as one behind the US after 9/11. This was France's 9/11. We can't even show up?

But having said that, it doesn't surprise me that Obama dissed the French in their time of national loss. It just confirms what most of us know about this loser of a human being. He is not a leader.

[PghBaldy]

It does look bad when people as hated as Netanyahu can do this, yet Obama can’t. If they tell people it is a security issue, it makes us look like prima donnas, which we are.

[Yaelle]

Great post. This was optics and this was the West standing together in the face of our common enemy.

Obama kept that one promise from his book. “Should the winds shift in an ugly direction, I will stand with the Muslims.”