America quits

Democrat strategist Doug Schoen wrote on the absence of Obama administration presence in the Paris rally (which I wrote about in, "US administration snubs the entire free world"). Schoen's essay is, "Obama AWOL in Paris: Message to America, allies is we don't care."

Sunday, President Obama morally abdicated his place as the leader of the free world.

His decision to stay home instead of standing side by side with French President Hollande as millions marched in Paris in solidarity with the slain journalists of Charlie Hebdo in opposition to radical Islam – an enemy fiercer than we have seen in decades – sent a clear message to the world: Obama just doesn’t care.

Which is exactly the message the president was trying to send. As I said yesterday,

Even the president of Mali made it. But not our president ("though his public schedule was empty the day of the massive gathering") nor anyone else from his administration. This was a deliberate, intended snub; there is no other possible conclusion.

The left-of-center NY Daily News almost gets it:

"Almost gets it" because the NYDN doesn't seem to get what Doug Schoen does, that this non-presence was not a mere disappointment of miscalculation on the White House's part. It was a deliberate abandonment of America's historic leadership in the defense of western civilization and Enlightenment freedoms.

But it is unsurprising when you think about it:

In Leftist mindset, America is the main cause (if not the only cause) of the misery of the rest of the world. The world has been literally suffering from a United States that is too rich, too militarily powerful and to capitalist for the health of the world. And this is exactly the world view of our president and all his top operatives. For the United States to be displaced from its "perch" is not merely laudatory, in their view it is positively desirable.

The rest of the world, friend and enemy alike, are surely starting to internalize that the United States is now weak on purpose and by design. Friends and enemies alike are now concluding surely that the United States can no longer be counted on either to support our allies or oppose our enemies in any significant measure.

And that is exactly the conclusion that Barack Obama wants them to draw.

Update: Well here is a twist that never occurred to me. A correspondent wondered whether the Hollande government even invited Obama.