US conservatives are taking full advantage of awkward remarks made by secretary of state John Kerry about the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris. While speaking to the staff and families of the US embassy in Paris yesterday (Nov. 17), Kerry said the following, referencing the January shootings of journalists at Charlie Hebdo, a satirical French magazine that published cartoons of the prophet Muhammed:

There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people.

Read the article “John Kerry Says He Could See the ‘Rationale’ of the Charlie Hebdo Shootings” on qz.com.