President Barack Obama’s official routine for Sunday was “no public schedule,” but the White House tried to explain that he did not attend the mass “I am Charlie” rally because of problems of security.
Or perhaps Obama did not attend the rally, because it might have messed up his schedule for Monday, which consisted of receiving the daily presidential briefing, speaking at the Federal Trade Commission on plans to tackle identity theft, and honoring the NBA champions, the San Antonio Spurs.
Facing stiff criticism for the absence of a senior American official, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest admitted Monday, “We should have sent someone with a higher profile to be there.”
He explained that security arrangements could not have been completed satisfactorily. Questioned by Fox News why security was good enough for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other foreign officials to participate in the rally, Earnest said that each country has its own standards of security.
However, he was not able to explain the absence of Attorney General Eric Holder, who was attending a security summit meeting at the time of the rally.
Kerry re-arranged his schedule so he could travel to Paris later this week and put a check next to the sentence, “I was in Paris to express solidarity with the war on Islamic terror.”
Concerning his decision to change his schedule on Sunday and fly to Paris for the rally, Kerry stated, “I would have personally very much wanted to have been [in Paris] but couldn’t do so because of the commitment that I had here and it is important to keep these kinds of commitments.”
Instead, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a former State Dept. spokeswoman, marched in the rally in Washington, while the U.S. Ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, was at the Paris rally.