I am embarrassed .... how about you ??

I guess since this was not a fund raiser or an opportunity to display his so-called oratorical brilliance, it was not an important enough event for Barack Obama to attend. You know him, the president-when-he-is-in-the-mood-for-it of the United States? This was the march by an estimated 1.5 million people along the Boulevard Voltaire in Paris, France, in a demonstration Sunday meant to illustrate the power of unity and freedom of expression over the barbarism of Islamic fanaticism and terror. With seventeen victims dead in France, French President François Hollande, arm-in-arm with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and a host of European and African leaders led the march. Some say they understand why Emperor Obama was not present, but admit he should not have prevented the vice president, the secretary of state or even the attorney general, who actually already was in Paris, to take part in this expression of sympathy for the victims and outrage at the perpetrators. I am not so generous. I am angered and embarrassed. I think Obama -- any U.S. president, no matter what his name -- should have been in the midst of the march and that his absence is just one more demonstration that Obama has no character, no dignity, no intestinal fortitude, no moral integrity and is an absolute megalomaniac. Beyond his failures as a man, as a leader, as a president, at some point someone will have to become hard core vs. the assorted "barbarians at the gates." Maybe, that will happen now, but do not count on an Obama Administration to lead the way. Incidentally, the photograph comes from AFP/Getty Images. I hope they will forgive me for "borrowing it" as a professional courtesy to someone who spent sixteen years here and there as a journalist, and had some super "journalistic moments" running alongside some super photographers. I would have loved to have been in Paris for this event, both as a journalist and as a human being. As for the music, here are a singer and a painter who, unlike most alive today, understood while they lived and, as the "Old Greeks" once knew, that art = the creation of beauty.