It’s like Obama feels the need to compensate for everything he does great inside the country by messing it up royally on the world arena. WTF with not going to the Paris rally??
Remember how when he was first elected we all thought, “Well, no matter what, he will be a great asset internationally”?
Is there any American leader who was ever capable of not goading the entire planet into hating the US?
Clarissa's Blog 
You nailed it. I’m wondering why I’ve seen no mention of this in the MSM. Other nations were represented by the head of state. Obama should have been there, and if he couldn’t make it, Joe Biden. That’s what leaders are for.
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Obama will not call out radical islam for what it is.. it is that simple. Sometimes deep analysis is needed. He is afraid to offend radical islam / muslims.. and when you will not call a spade a spade you lose moral authority. Despite not liking the president I am pretty balanced and fair to him.. but this one is simple. Too politically correct and he HATES that the attention is not on him for his policies and all that he is doing and that you have to actually sometimes oppose religious or other radicals who are not conservatives. End of the rant.. but this one deserves a rant. (on the good news side I have been hearing he will ask for troops to defeat ISIS.. think about how scary the intel on ISIS is if OBAMA is willing to send troops… truly crazy)
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There’s no monolithic “radical islam”. There are separate things going on.
In the west, extremist weirdos are very appealing to a certain type of loser (not alway entirely their own fault) who gets to focus their free floating rage on a specific target instead of examining their own choices and lifestyles. The Charlie Hebdo killers were petty thugs with chips on their shoulders and “radicals” gave them a way to convince themselves they were actually better than all those people doing better than them.
In most Muslim majority countries there’s a growing schism between more educated and secular oriented minority (education and secularism go together you can’t have one without the other) and less educated masses (for lack of a better word) who are not especially religious but will always vote for and support someone who claims to be acting for the sake of Islam.
This is what people mean by “democracy threshhold”. Uneducated hungry people tend to make bad choices at election time. In poor muslims countries an appeal to backward social policies in the name of Islam will do very well when there’s an election (which is far from often).
The rulers in such cases have an interest in keeping their countries uneducated and backwards.
In a few Muslim countries there’s mostly avoidance of any real democracy and a de facto caste system where citizens are a minority and are kept happy on consumerism with mass doses of forced religious observance on the poor and virtual slave conditions for the third world workers who actually keep things running.
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I don’t see what it is we are gaining by caving to these bandits, this scum and supporting their fantasy of being allied with a religion or any cause greater than their banditry. You are doing exactly what they want you to do , Matt. My question is why?
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I can understand the president on another continent not going. But then he needs to send either the VP (what else does he have going on?) or the Secretary of State.
Leaving it to the ambassador was a clear sign of disrespect or indifference neither of which is a message the US should send in this case.
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“I can understand the president on another continent not going. But then he needs to send either the VP (what else does he have going on?) or the Secretary of State.”
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Well somebody was there: the American ambassador to France. Which in some ways seems OK to me. But given the uproar, it was clearly a bad decision. I agree that it would have been appropriate for the VP (who as Cliff points out, has a largely ceremonial job) or the Secretary of State.
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Even more embarassing is that the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs went, and was criticized by some government officials. So he had to give a press conference to explain he went as a private citizen and not as an Argentine representative.
Changing topics, if you want to laugh, Argentina’s Secretary of Commerce explaining why you can’t find tampons in Argentina: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1759554-fue-una-especie-de-corrida-contra-el-tampon-dijo-el-secretario-de-comercio-augusto-costa
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Argentina is such a fascinating country. Who could have expected this whole tampon-related drama in the year 2015? 🙂 🙂
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Evil corporations provoking a run on tampons. I will confess: I love Argentine politics. The level of absurdity is unparalleled. You should read the tweets of Cristina (her official account). They are amazing.
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