Does anyone know who will be present at the summit on extremist violence?
No-one knows that yet because it was delayed from October and just got revived over the weekend.
I would expect the 40 arm-in-arm leaders from the Paris rally to be there…wouldn’t you?
Not really. But we will see. At this point it sounds much more domestic or at least it was until Sunday.
Well, we can use it either way.
We could all learn some snarky pointers/take some snarky lessons from Rachel Maddow.
shoulda sent Biden
Biden…yes…
We can all feel better that John Kerry has made his way to Paris today, to share a big hug on behalf of America.
Unfortunately, the French president was rather repelled by the prospect of hugging him. Can you blame him? At least the thought was there.
When I heard that Kerry brought along James Taylor to sing “You’ve Got A Friend” to the French, I thought surely it must be an SNL skit and not an actual incident.
I heard about the “big hug” thing and almost threw up, and that was before I knew about the James Taylor song.
So, that’s why everyone was playing You’ve Got a Friend this morning. How very strange. 
Well, ain’t the entire WH foreign policy predicated on the power of Kumbaya? I guess Barney had more pressing commitments.
Not going to the rally was bad but showing up a week later with James Taylor is just cringe-inducing.
I think the Kerry/Taylor thing was stupid but so was the photo op of world leaders, many of whom hypocritically condone or turn a blind eye to terrorism in their own countries.
The important thing is that we are sharing our intelligence with the French, at least one other plot has been thwarted since Charlie Hebdo, and American conservatives seem to have forgotten all about their anti-French views of yore.
By the way, this article has the full photo of the 40 leaders–obviously not anywhere near the million protesters who stood in the streets for hours.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/photo-world-leaders-paris-not-article-1.2074629
Haha, a CNN expert just called the 19th arrondissement of Paris a suburb. It was in the context of the burial place of the two Muslim assassins. Yep, Gennevilliers and Reims are in the 19th. 
Yes, Sally, I thought I’d linked that photo a few days ago when I mentioned it being a photo op.
I agree that the Kerry/Taylor thing was odd. I love JT as much as anyone but I don’t understand why anyone thought this was a good idea. The least they could have done was to get a proper microphone!
^ We might think it was stupid, but everything I have read is that the French applauded loudly (to the shock of RightWingWorld.) I would have posted a link except it was only mentioned in RightWingWorld blogs/publications like the Daily Caller.
As for Kerry going in for a hug, you wonder about the quality of aides who support these visits, and presumably script out the sequence of events. Maybe Clinton had the interpersonal skills to get away with his own judgement in such cases, but not Kerry.
@xiggi " Haha, a CNN expert just called the 19th arrondissement of Paris a suburb. It was in the context of the burial place of the two Muslim assassins. Yep, Gennevilliers and Reims are in the 19th. "
You may know this, but many Europeans use ‘suburb’ differently to Americans. It can mean something like “area of a city that has a lot of housing and is not right in the middle of the central business/tourist district”. Many Europeans would be quite happy describing the 19th as a suburb.
It doesn’t carry the American meaning of a place far out from the city with lots of big houses.