We have a president that has a thing for subservience. There isn’t a conservative alive worth his salt that doesn’t know the president bowed to King Saud. Now he’s gone and done it again, this time bowing to the Emperor of Japan, Emperor Akihito:
Some say the president was just being culturally sensitive, while others are saying the act is unprecedented. For example, I added this video to my Facebook page. Ed Morrissey later used it on Hot Air. It shows 46 handshakes, but only one bow:
So, is he right in what he did, or is this really a first?
According to Jake Tapper’s friend, both:
“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.’”
(See that picture HERE.)
“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.
The left can continue to tell us all about how culturally sensitive Obama is, but when they do, they should remember how hypocritical it is when compared to how they treated Bush for this photo:
Culturally, this was a sign of “kinship.” Considering how much Bush was trying to convince the Islamic community that America was not at war with Islam, you would think the left would have applauded this “culturally sensitve” gesture.
Are we trying to convince the Japanese we aren’t at war with them? Or just are we just sucking up?
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