Monday, November 16, 2009

Taking A Bow

President Obama caused quite a ruckus over the weekend while in Japan. When he met Emperor Akihito he bowed which is a major faux paus. Americans do not bow to royalty and especially not Presidents. But as this video shows, the President not only bowed once but several times:



But as this video shows, other world leaders know not to bow to the Emperor (hat tip: Ed Morrissey):



At least one expert on Japan says the President's critics on both the right and left are all wrong about why it was wrong but makes the point that the bow was still offensive in the eyes of the Japanese.

Two thoughts come to mind. First, there is no question that the President is very intelligent, having been educated at Harvard and Columbia. Either he's not listening to his protocol advisers or the State Department has some housecleaning to do.

Second, this whole incident reminds me of this toy for some reason:

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