White House: Should have sent high official to Paris march

Barack Obama, Robert McDonald, Joe Biden
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden walk with Procter and Gamble executive Robert McDonald, Obama’s nominee as the next Veterans Affairs secretary, from the Department of Veterans Affairs across Lafayette Park back to the White House in Washington, Monday, June 30, 2014. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

WASHINGTON (AP)—In a rare public admission of error, the White House said last Monday the U.S. should have sent a high-level official to an anti-terror march in Paris that was attended by more than 40 world leaders.
The Obama administration was represented last Sunday by the U.S. ambassador to France, though Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris for security meetings.
“It’s fair to say we should have sent someone with a higher profile,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. Secretary of State John Kerry was on a long-planned trip to India last Sunday but now will visit France later this week.
The White House appeared to have been caught off guard by both the display of international unity at the Paris march and the criticism of its decision to be represented only by Ambassador Jane Hartley. Last Monday’s admission of error seemed aimed at blunting criticism that the decision was tone deaf or disrespectful of the long U.S. alliance with France, a country set on edge by three days of terror that resulted in 17 deaths.
Earnest suggested the elaborate security apparatus required for presidential travel prohibited Obama, as well as Vice President Joe Biden, from traveling to Paris on relatively short notice.
“There’s no doubt that had the president or vice president, on this very short time frame, gone to participate in this event that took place outdoors with more than a million people in attendance, that it would have significantly impacted the ability of those who attended the march to participate in the way they did yesterday,” Earnest said.
Dozens of world leaders did attend the march in Paris last Sunday, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Earnest said the march was a “remarkable display of unity” in the face of the attacks that set France on edge.
 
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