On President Obama’s Bow to the Japanese Emperor, An Academic Friend Writes That Both the Left and the Right Are Wrong.
Jake Tapper
ABC News Senior White House Correspondent
November 15, 2009
An old friend — an academic with expertise about the Japanese Empire, and in general a supporter of President Obama — sends me the following note, relating to photographs of President Obama bowing to Emperor Akihito of Japan.
“This picture shows two things,” my friend writes.
“1) The ‘right’ is wrong about Obama’s bow.
“2) The ‘left’ is wrong about Obama’s bow.
“His bow is neither (1) unprecedented nor (2) a sign of cultural understanding.
“At their 1971 meeting in Alaska, the first visit of a Japanese Emperor to America, President Nixon bowed and referred to Emperor Hirohito and his wife repeatedly as ‘Your Imperial Majesties.'”
“Yet, (and?) Nixon gets the bow right. Slight arch from the waist hands at his side.
“Obama’s handshake/forward lurch was so jarring and inappropriate it recalls Bush’s back-rub of Merkel.
“Kyodo News is running his appropriate and reciprocated nod and shake with the Empress, certainly to show the president as dignified, and not in the form of a first year English teacher trying to impress with Karate Kid-level knowledge of Japanese customs.
“The bow as he performed did not just display weakness in Red State terms, but evoked weakness in Japanese terms….The last thing the Japanese want or need is a weak looking American president and, again, in all ways, he unintentionally played that part.
“BTW, Obama’s bow at Suntory Hall was much better. Correct angle, slight bow. His hands were wrong but the physical tone was correct and appropriate.
“But if Obama can get the dollar to stop bowing to the Yen I take it all back.”
——-
Obama branded ‘Groveller-in-Chief’ after deep bow to Emperor son of Japanese ruler who authorised Pearl Harbour attack
From Daily Mail, UK
by David Gardner
15 November 2009
President Obama has been branded the ‘Groveller-in-Chief’ after giving an exaggerated bow to Japan’s emperor Akihito – the son of the ruler who authorised the
1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
Coming so soon after Remembrance Day [Veterans’ Day], the deep bow caused an outcry in the U.S.
While it was seen as a sign of respect in Japan, Mr Obama was attacked in America for ‘bowing and scraping’ to a foreign leader, particularly a Japanese one. Wartime scars are still raw for many Americans…
…‘Will this man ever stop bowing and scraping to foreign leaders?’…
The rest of the Daily Mail’s article is here.
