Comedian Jon Stewart, who has typically shown great fealty toward President Barack Obama, joined the growing outcry over his failure to have marched with 40 other world leaders at the unity rally in Paris that followed last week's brazen terrorist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo,
Mediaite reports.
"How could Obama not be there? Look at how many world leaders he could have bowed down to and apologized," Stewart jabbed.
And the "Comedy Central" star used a pointed expletive to ask "What the …?" in questioning why, if Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris at the time, he couldn't be bothered to join the global group,
according to NBC News. Officials at the rally included such heads of state as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
"Unbelievable! An enormous global rally in supporting freedom of expression after an attack on close ally and the U.S. was a no-show?" Stewart said.
Stewart, in an epic rant, dubbed the rally "the world's most powerful game of Red Rover ever … They are daring terrorism to come on over," he said, alluding to the leaders locking arms as they made their way through the Paris streets in a sign of solidarity against violence related to radical Islam.
Between 1.2 million and 1.6 million people attended the rally, the largest in French history.
"Couldn't Obama at least have sent a friend?" Stewart asked.
The White House on Monday offered a rare mea culpa for not taking the Paris march seriously enough to send a high-level figure like Secretary of State John Kerry or even Vice President Joe Biden,
The New York Times said.
"We're all united behind France, but if we suddenly start shying away from mocking the French with tired stereotypes, the terrorists win and I"m not going to let that happen," Stewart said, highlighting the power of the pencil and sporting a beret and mustache, as he introduced a short black and white film "Les Crayons de France."
Since the Paris attacks, which killed a total of 17 people, including much of the staff of Charlie Hebdo, supporters of the magazine have held pencils aloft at rallies.
Kerry, who was in India for talks during the rally, is expected to pay a visit to France this week,
according to the Huffington Post.