The question came up today of how President Obama is doing in the handling of the Charlie Hebdo situation in Paris.
Handling it? Why do people think this is Obama's situation to handle? I realize some folks think the president of the United States is responsible for solving every problem in the world, but that's not true. The French authorities actually appear to have done an excellent job of tracking down the terrorists in this situation. And while it's a terrible tragedy that some of the hostages taken this morning lost their lives, that is solely on the terrorists themselves who took the hostages in the first place and put French police in an untenable position.
It would have been useful to capture them alive, of course, so they could have been interrogated in the pursuit of information about others that might have been involved in this attack. But terrorists who are determined to die a martyr's death often don't give you that opportunity. At least we know these individual murders will not murder anyone else.
And I will say this for Obama: At least he actually called this terrorism, which it clearly is. We often criticize Obama when he is reluctant to plainly call something what it is - especially when we're talking about terrorism - so while I hardly think he deserves a medal for acknowledging reality, we should give him credit when he does what we're always saying he should do. Yes, these guys were apparently affiliated with Al Qaeda and had been on U.S. no-fly lists for some time, so we knew who they were and we know they weren't just individuals with a grudge.
I'm glad Obama acknowledged that. It's a lot better than when he tried to insist the Fort Hood shootings were mere "workplace violence," which among other things complicated the process of those who were wounded receiving Purple Hearts. And I hope that in the future his policies start reflecting the reality of terrorism a lot better than they have in the past. A simple statement is a pretty small step but maybe it will lead to something better.
In the here and now, though, Obama needs to stay out of this situation and let the French handle it. They're doing fine. If we later discover a particular Al Qaeda cell was involved with planning this, and they want American help in dealing with it, we can talk. Today, there is nothing Obama needs to "handle." I'm just glad he got the words right for once. That's enough.
