'The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam...'

As lots of folks have been reminding us over the weekend, recall the president's infamous prophecy of doom, delivered at the United Nations, September 25, 2012:



And at Politico, "Barack Obama’s French kiss-off":

Barack Obama n’est pas Charlie — or at least, he wasn’t this weekend.

Don’t look for the president or vice president among the photos of 44 heads of state who locked arms and marched down Boulevard Voltaire in Paris. Nor did they join a companion march the French Embassy organized in Washington on Sunday afternoon.

Indeed, Obama’s public reactions to the attacks in Paris last week have been muted. His initial response Wednesday to the killing of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices was delivered as he sat calmly in an armchair in the Oval Office speaking about the “cowardly” acts and defending freedom of the press. Two days later, as a gunman took hostages and went on to kill four people in a kosher grocery, Obama took a few seconds away from a community college proposal roll-out in Tennessee because he said with events unfolding, “I wanted to make sure to comment on them” — but never then or afterward specifically condemned that attack.

Obama wasn’t far from the march in D.C. on Sunday that wended silently along six blocks from the Newseum to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. Instead, he spent the chilly afternoon a few blocks away at the White House, with no public schedule, no outings.

Joe Biden was back home in Wilmington, Delaware.
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Neither they nor any high-level administration official attended either event.

France’s top American diplomat, diplomatically, tried to make the best of it.

“Thank you to Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary at the Department of State, who has represented the U.S. Authorities at the demonstration in DC. A friend,” Ambassador Gérard Araud tweeted Sunday evening, as criticism of the administration mounted.

And though it’s symbolism—Obama made several statements last week condemning the terror, and the government has been supporting French efforts throughout—the symbolism has caught a lot of attention.

“I wish our US President had gone to Paris to stand with our European allies,” tweeted James Stavridis, the retired Navy admiral and current dean of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

“It’s stunning, truly stunning,” said Aaron David Miller, who among other responsibilities during his time at the State Department under both Republicans and Democrats, helped deliberate over which officials to send to which events. “It’s a poster child for tone deafness.”...

It's literally unforgivable. I'm ashamed for my country, for the American people, who are without representation at a time like this. Victoria Nuland just doesn't cut it.

Not a "profiles in courage" moment, to put it mildly.