It is a sad reflection on the state of the news media today that idle gossip and silly punditry now flow unfiltered from the fringe corners of the blogosphere into the main stream … often as breaking news! And nothing demonstrates this quite like the way conservative wingnuts turned their paranoid delusions about President Obama’s birth (they say Kenya) and religion (they say Muslim) into national headlines.
Now these “dittoheads” have the main stream media propagating their fulminations about the shame Obama supposedly caused the United States by “bowing down to the Japanese Emperor” during his visit to Japan a couple days ago.
And to give credence to their jingoistic indignation, they’ve published a video of cynically edited still shots, which capture other world leaders greeting the emperor with an upright handshake but Obama doing so with a deep-waist bow.
Meanwhile, they all seem to have forgotten how Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, held hands with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and fawned all over him like a love-sick schoolgirl.
Frankly, to say this is much ado about nothing risks dignifying this criticism.
All the same, I believe it is important to reinforce the fact that it’s a sign of engaging strength for the most powerful man on the planet to show such respect for local protocol and customs wherever he travels.
Unfortunately, this concept is hopelessly lost on these partisan idiots who would clearly prefer to see their American president strut all over the world like a conquering military general. Instead of criticizing Obama, they really should learn some manners….
That said, I just HOPE Obama’s handlers do not respond to criticisms about this bow before the Japanese emperor with the same, patently absurd spin they proffered in response to criticisms about his bow before the Saudi king earlier this year, which I commented on as follows:
His critics charge that Obama displayed a “shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate” by bowing to Abdullah. But his press spokesman, Robert Gibbs, insisted yesterday that:
‘It wasn’t a bow … [the president] bent over and grasped his hands with both hands [as a gesture of respect], and he’s taller than King Abdullah.’
As disappointed as I am with his critics for making their patently absurd charge, I am even more disillusioned with Obama’s handlers for putting this Clintonian spin on such an egregious gaffe: He clearly bowed!
[Mr President, did you bend or did you bow, TIJ, April 10, 2009]
Enough said.
Related commentaries:
Mr President, did you bend, or did you bow
Obama bows, others stand before Japanese emperor
Bush and Saudi King holding hands
Bush and Saudi King holding hands II
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