"Deep bow speaks weakness"
Karl Rove: "I think it was inappropriate, look, a slight nod of the head perhaps to the Japanese Emperor, what's that all about, I mean he's not even the Head of State, but that deep bow from the waist actually from the Japanese culture speaks weakness, and look the President of the United States simply can't get it right.
According to homepage.mac.com:
Obama grovels yet again before a hereditary monarch.
Would some grown up at the State Department please let the unqualified imbecile know that excessive deference is not expected between heads of state, even by inbred aristocrats like Akihito and Abdullah, and least of all from the leader of the world's only superpower. A polite nod is quite adequate. This sort of thing sends a very strange signal. But then, he's a very strange man.
God help us when he visits China. He'll probably knock head.
The invaluable Judith Martin covered this very topic a couple of months back. Quoting:
But symbolic subservience to a foreign ruler is worse. When Miss Manners sees American citizens delighting in bowing or curtseying to royalty, she tries to remind herself that they are just being silly, not treasonous. When an American official does it, we can only hope it was because he was noticing that his own shoelace was undone -- and not that he recognizes the divine right of kings in general, or the authority over us of that king in particular.
In this, as in so many things, he could take a lesson from Dick Cheney.
That's how an American greets a foreign head of state.
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Hot Air Pundit has a nice collection of photos of other heads of state greeting the Japanese Emperor. Far from bowing, the King of Morocco looks like he didn't bother to shave!
http://hotairpundit.blogspot.com/2009/11/president-obama-vs-rest-of-world.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UdP64CgsDk
http://homepage.mac.com/gerardharbison/blog/RWP_blog.html
