Charles Krauthammer, conservative columnist for the Washington Post, is breaking with most Republicans, including the three GOP presidential candidates, on their criticism that President Obama was wrong to stay in Cuba after the major terrorist attack in Brussels.
The attacks by the Islamic State came Tuesday, while President Obama was in Cuba to deliver a speech about U.S. relations with that country’s government. He spent just less than a minute acknowledging the attacks, which reportedly left 30 dead, before returning to his remarks on Cuba.
“When Brussels intervened, some argued that Obama should have cut short his trip and come back home,” Krauthammer wrote in his latest column. “I disagree. You don’t let three suicide bombers control the itinerary of the American president. Moreover, Obama’s next stop, Argentina, is actually important and had just elected a friendly government that broke from its long and corrupt Peronist past.”
Krauthammer is at odds with Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, as well as other conservative commentators, who have said Obama appeared disengaged from the threat of terrorism by not immediately returning to Washington, D.C.
He wrote, however, that Obama’s decision to attend a baseball game after his speech with Cuban President Raul Castro could have been foregone.
“Obama could have done without the baseball,” wrote Krauthammer. “What kind of message does it send to be yukking it up with Raúl even as Belgian authorities are picking body parts off the floor of the Brussels airport?”
