White House spokesman Josh Earnest offered this excuse to explain why President Obama skipped the weekend rally in Paris: it would’ve impacted “common citizens.”
“[H]ad the circumstances been a little bit different, I think the President himself would have liked to have had the opportunity to be there,” Earnest said, after saying the White House should’ve sent a person of higher profile than just the U.S. ambassador to France.
“[T]he fact is, that is this is obviously a march that the planning for which only began on Friday night and 36 hours later it had begun. What’s also clear is that the security requirements around a presidential-level visit or even a vice presidential-level visit are onerous and significant. And in a situation like this, they typically have a pretty significant impact on the other citizens who are trying to participate in a large public event like this. We talk about this a lot when it comes to the President attending a basketball game, but the fact of the matter is there were not just thousands of people at the event — there were millions. It wasn’t just an arena that needed to be secured, but a large outdoor area that poses significant security challenges.
“I’m confident that the professionals at the Secret Service could overcome those challenges, but it would have been very difficult to do so without significantly impacting the ability of common citizens to participate in this march. And after all, what I think was so impressive about this display is it demonstrated the unity of the French people. And that is something that we are always mindful of in situations like this, of interfering with those who are trying to attend an event, particularly when the purpose of the event is to demonstrate the unity of spirit and purpose of the people who are coming together.”
