Mystifyingly responding to outraged conservative critics who bashed him for not flying over to France personally,[1] Obama tried to salvage American face this week by sending John Kerry to Paris…
… who showed up and said he was there to give France “a hug” from us…
… and then trotted out James Taylor — I can only assume because it turned out that Barry Manilow turned out to be booked, Andy Williams turned out to be dead, and Englebert Humperdinck turned out to be Scottish — to sing a song about “friendship.”
I think this might well be the most awkward attempt at US-European diplomacy since Bush II tried to give Angela Merkel a massage in front of the foreign press.
I really wish the White House had stayed course on its initial quiet, dignified route. And if they felt they really had to do something show-bizzy like this, I wish they would have gone whole hog and thumbed their noses at the Fox News crowd by sending Jay Z and Beyonce. Pretty sure all of France would agree with me on that.
[1] Mystifying because if he had gone, they would have been equally outraged that he did.
We’ll never know what their reasoning would have been in that alternate universe, but my money is on either “More proof that he cares more about foreigners than he does Americans!” or “Another taxpayer-paid luxury vacation for the tyrant and first lady!”
Mock away!Report
I think all this really requires is planting your palm firmly on your face, preferably with an audible slapping sound.Report
Re: your footnote. Had Obama actually gone, he’d no doubt have said something about how Islam isn’t the enemy and Muslims aren’t the enemy, only extremists who incorrectly think that violence is some sort of religious imperative. We’d then have been treated to displays of sarcasm concerning the so-called religion of peace, and accusations that the President is a simpering, whimpering, coward unable or unwilling to even acknowledge the incontestable truth that we are at war with Islam because Islam declared war on us and maybe he isn’t really interested in fighting that war because he’s at least sympathetic to the Muslims if not secretly one of them himself.
You’ve heard it all before. It’s sort of like the new AC/DC album. You’ve heard other AC/DC albums in the past. All the songs sound alike. Maybe you like AC/DC’s song. If so, the new album will be enjoyable to you. But it’s not going to be anything substantially different from what you’ve heard from them before.Report
Obama is currently in a can’t win position with conservatives. He would have been attacked for not showing the iron glove if he went to France.Report
“Obama is currently in a can’t win position with conservatives.”
Currently?Report
“Currently,” as in “In this time-space continuum.”Report
Obama was in a no-win position when it came to the rally in Paris. The amount of security and protocol necessary for a Presidential visit would make Obama’s appearance on short notice nearly impossible to pull off. Yet, it is obvious that for the leader of the free world not to appear at the free speech we are all united rally would be obviously bad PR and meat for his critics.Report
Which begs the question on why POTUS security was an insurmountable obstacle while it was not for other heads of government/heads of state.Report
The Secret Service apparently can’t keep intruders out of the White House. Paris? Fuhgeddaboutit.Report
There wasn’t enough time for the Secret Service to visit prostitutes and set up security.Report
@glyph @hoosegow-flask Points!Report
Kolohe, I imagine that the protocol revolving around the security of the President of the United States is a bit more elaborate than other heads of government or state.Report
[@hoosegow-flask and @glyph get hauled off by large men wearing dark glasses and earpieces]Report
It’s not really something that bothers me or that I am sore about, but he could have at least sent Kerry of it really was about security. The howlers would still howl, but they’d lose some of their bite.Report
Lee that’s still begging the question. Netanyahu was there. Abbas was there. The King and Queen of Jordan were there. All (save the Queen) with predecessors who were assassinated.Report
K,
It just shows that we Murkins value life more than all those other folks who so casually risked their own, yeah?Report
I thought “currently” was a pun on AC/DC.Report
If he’d sent Kerry, he would have been criticized for sending a French guy instead of an American.Report
You got somethin against friendship bro?
Actually, it seems like the sorta lameness a dickish person does to demonstrate what they think other people will view as a show of Real Concern when they’re fundamentally incapable of it.Report
Course, the song does contain the lyrics “just call out my name and I’ll come runnin”, which might be a way of telling the French we’ll bomb some Muslims for em if they just give the word.Report
Awesome.
I almost went with something about the song having newly added lyrics that went, “just call out my name and I’ll come runnin’ after a week or so when i look pretty bad for having stayed home…”
Yours is funnier.Report
Did you really just put James Taylor in the same category as Barry Freakin’ Manilow?Report
I know, right?!
“Ready to Take a Chance Again” would have been soooo much better.
That would have been real diplomacy – could apply to many different angles. Which you? What kind of Chance? Again?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrkr9Ipj1XAReport
You’re right, we shouldn’t put them both in the same category. We have no evidence that Manilow said “yes” do doing it.Report
The weird thing about all of this is that most of these politicians are supposed to be slick “people people” whose primary talents are figuring out how to make other people feel good about them. It seems like if you were to meet John Kerry or any of his handlers in person, they’d be very good at coming across as likable people who respect you and care about your thoughts and feelings. So I don’t get why this stuff happens.
My only guess is that they have a really hard time relating to the median citizen (especially a foreign one) in the abstract as being a person with feelings and motivations much like themselves and the flesh and blood human beings standing around them. I suppose we all empathize more with people standing in the same room as us than with the abstract notion of a person far away, but this kind of disconnect seems weirdly extreme.Report
Should have been Cat Stevens.Report
Space Awesome!Report
btw, it wasn’t just conservative critics.Report
and the Administration said earlier this week that someone higher ranking in the US govt than the US Ambassador to France should have gone.Report
Which was ridiculously dumb of them. There was never any issue to be concerned about.Report
How else will the world know the US position on terrorism?Report
ftr, I think this whole kerfuffle is stupid on toast. But while (of course) conservative critics criticized Obama, so did other people. And then the Obama administration admitted that they done goofed up. The original post leaves the impression that the whole Obama not going to Paris thing is something only the derposphere is getting on his case about.
(and even when the President says notgonnadoit and he’s right, he and his peeps can still give bs reasons on which they can be called out o)Report
You know, that really would have been one hell of a photo op for (insert Republican Candidate here).
Not ready for prime time, the whole lot of them.Report
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Terror experts are unsure how the French will retaliate.Report
I know- they’ll stone him no matter what he does.
But he should have been there.Report
Talking about this last night, somebody came up with the great idea that this is exactly what the State of the Union needs – a house band and a musical guest. “Live from Capitol Hill! It’s Tuesday Night!”Report
Ugh. Oi. I have no “this is why it’s not what it looks like” take on this. It’s too excruciating even to think about: So I’m done except to note that James Taylor, who I’ve read resides in France, deserves part of the blame for not having told them they were crazy, and refusing.Report
The only mistake they made here was giving this dumb controversy any time or thought at all.Report
At least they didn’t send Carly Simon too. That would have been awkward.Report
Well, we might have finally figured out who is so vain.Report
I sort of give James Taylor a pass for being in the greatest car movie of all time, BUT, I do enjoy this passage from the great Lester Bangs:
“Matter of fact, if I ever get down to Carolina I’m going to try to figure out a way to off James Taylor. Hate to come off like a Nazi, but if I hear one more Jesus-walking-the-boys-and-girls-down-a-Carolina-path-while-the-dilemma-of-existence-crashes-down-like-a-slab-of-hod-on-JT’s-shoulders song, I will drop everything and hop the first Greyhound to California for the signal satisfaction of breaking off a bottle of Ripple and twisting it into James Taylor’s guts until he expires in a spasm of adenoidal poesy.”Report
Seeing the name “Lester Bangs” made me sad about Philip Seymour Hoffman all over again.Report