Lupica: U.S. betrays its values with no-show at Paris rally

MIKE LUPICAYesterday, 09:09 PM

CAROLYN KASTER/AP

Forty world leaders attended the rally in Paris, but President Obama was not among them.

There was an extraordinary moment and extraordinary scene in the middle of Paris, in the middle of a Sunday afternoon that will be remembered, after a week when it was Paris this time that became the capital of a dangerous world, when terrorists came to Paris to shoot up a magazine and a Jewish deli. This is how it works now, sometimes terrorism is just bad men and women coming through the front door with guns.

So millions took to the streets of Paris on this day, and 40 world leaders locked arms at the front of it all, including the prime minister of Israel and the Palestinian president. They all spoke defiantly, just by being present, about what had happened at the magazine Charlie Hebdo because of political cartoons, and at that deli, where more innocent people died.

This was a different form of French resistance in Paris on this day, all of these people coming together and sending out pictures like this to the world about the world we still want this to be, instead of the one that terrorists want, and that means all terrorists, the world where we live in constant fear.