U.S. High-Level Absence From Paris March Controversial — Except at AP
By Tom Blumer | January 11, 2015 | 11:59 PM EST
Thus far, the nation's de facto news gatekeepers at the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, have utterly failed to address the growing worldwide controversy over the absence of U.S. representation above the ambassador level at Sunday's solidarity march in Paris in the wake of Wednesday's Charlie Hebdo massacre. Crowd estimates for the Paris march range from "hundreds of thousands" to over 1.5 million.
The New York Daily News is calling the absence of a top U.S. leader "a glaring exception," and devoting its entire front page to telling our government that "You Let the World Down." The UK Daily Mail is treating the situation as a snub, also observing that Attorney General Eric Holder "was in Paris for a terrorism summit held on the march's sidelines, but he slipped away and made appearances on four American morning television talk shows just as the incredible rally was starting." But Angela Charlton and Thomas Adamson at the AP, in report carrying a 7:07 p.m. ET time stamp (saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes), apparently found nothing unusual in the U.S. non-presence:
MILLIONS RALLY FOR UNITY AGAINST TERRORISM IN FRANCE
More than a million people surged through the boulevards of Paris behind dozens of world leaders walking arm-in-arm Sunday in a rally for unity described as the largest demonstration in French history. Millions more marched around the country and the world to repudiate three days of terror that killed 17 people and changed France.
Amid intense security and with throngs rivaling those that followed the liberation of Paris from the Nazis, the city became "the capital of the world" for a day, on a planet increasingly vulnerable to such cruelty.
More than 40 world leaders headed the somber procession - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas; Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov - setting aside their differences with a common rallying cry: We stand together against barbarity, and we are all Charlie.
... "The entire world is under attack" from radical Islam, (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu said, citing attacks in cities from Madrid to Mumbai. He said these aren't isolated incidents but part of a "network of hatred" by radical groups.
(Paragraph 23 of 28)
... The U.S. was represented at the Paris rally by Ambassador Jane Hartley. At an international conference in India, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the world stood with the people of France "not just in anger and in outrage, but in solidarity and commitment to the cause of confronting extremism and in the cause that extremists fear so much and that has always united our countries: freedom."
The Daily Mail's take: "President Barack Obama and other top members of his administration have snubbed a historic rally in Paris today that brought together more than 40 world leaders from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and even Russia."
One cannot fail to note that the same Eric Holder, who was on location and failed to participate — even though many of the heads of state who participated, particularly Netanyahu, clearly had far more to fear by appearing — has called the country which employs him a "nation of cowards" on race.
Reuters earlier tonight reported: "Lack of top-level U.S. official at Paris march raises some eyebrows at home."
Even the notoriously left-leaning CNN, the crowd size outlier estimating only that "hundreds of thousands" attended, noted: "Obama, Kerry absent from unity rally in Paris," and reported that Holder "was not spotted at the unity march."
But the Associated Press, which works daily to earn its nickname as the Administration's Press, sees nothing out of order in any of this. In doing so, it may be sending a message to the country's early morning news shows — except for Fox News, which as usual, is on it — to stay away from the otherwise recognized controversy. We'll see if they comply.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
Source URL:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2015/01/11/us-high-level-absence-paris-march-controversial-%E2%80%94-except-ap 
