Obowma-gate

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/...sidential-tick

At 3:13, a vid of Obama bowing slightly to the emperor of Japan.

What say you-inappropriate?

(Methinks: tempest in a teapot; more bloviating. What's wrong with some cultural sensitivity? I did wonder, though, at his bowing before a Saudi. Doesn't Islam prohibit bowing?)

Don J. Modesto wrote: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/...sidential-tick At 3:13, a vid of Obama bowing slightly to the emperor of Japan. What say you-inappropriate? (Methinks: tempest in a teapot; more bloviating. What's wrong with some cultural sensitivity? I did wonder, though, at his bowing before a Saudi. Doesn't Islam prohibit bowing?)

It would depend on how the person you are bowing to perceive it.
Bowing in Japan can have different meaning depending on how the bow is done.
David

http://www.sphere.com/2009/11/16/the...rages-critics/

"In 1971, President Nixon bowed to Emperor Hirohito and his wife and repeatedly referred to them as "Your Imperial Majesties." Nixon got the bow right, though -- a slight bend from the waist with hands at his side. "Obama's handshake/forward lurch was ... jarring and inappropriate," according to Tapper's friend. Thomas Lifson, who lived in Japan for years and taught hundreds of foreign executives the right way to bow, agreed that -- regardless of any political subtext -- Obama's combination low-bow/handshake was a mess. It "violates a fundamental precept: NO TOUCHING while bowing," Lifson wrote for the American Thinker blog. He also noted that Emperor Akihito had a big smile on his face as Obama bowed. "That's pretty much polite Japanese for 'falling down laughing,'" Lifson explained."

AND:
http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/newrep...ote=1&p=245596

Pamela Eyring, the president of The Protocol School of Washington, said that while there's no "hard-and-fast" rule, a bow is not appropriate when national leaders meet. "They're peers. ... Unfortunately, it isn't correct for a chief of state to bow to another chief of state," she told FoxNews.com. "It's not appropriate. He should not be bowing to other chiefs of state." She said Obama was clearly trying to show respect, but that the royal couple would not expect such a gesture from a Western leader. Eyring, who reviewed the video of the encounter, said they seemed a "bit uncomfortable" watching Obama bow. "When you're representing the United States of America, everything speaks ... on behalf of our country," Eyring said. "It's a visual. It shows more of a subservient look." By most accounts, it hasn't been official protocol for a U.S. president, or any American, to bow to a foreign head of state or symbolic monarch. Other heads of state and officials, like former Vice President Cheney, have greeted the Japanese emperor with a handshake -- which Eyring said is the appropriate custom. Former President Clinton got slammed for coming close to bowing to the Japanese emperor in 1994. The New York Times ridiculed him, noting, "The image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent President, and the Emperor of Japan." But the paper wrote that the "thou need not bow" standard in State Department protocol has been constant since the country's founding. Even "Miss Manners," while perhaps not the guiding force for the president's travel team, wrote two decades ago that, "One does not bow or curtsy to a foreign monarch because the gesture symbolizes recognition of her power over her subjects." Following the encounter with the Saudi King, The Washington Times declared it a "shocking display of fealty" and an "extraordinary protocol violation."

Yaaaaawn....

William Hazen