Look, if Obama really wanted to show subservience to the Japanese, he’d strip down and allow their tentacle monster to rape him. As it were, Bush spent eight years on his back splayed out naked with twelve and a half inches of Saudi sandworm tunneling up his ass. Until footage of Obama in Kenyan camel-orgies, Nobel Committee enema-clinics in Sweden or catheterized Florentine servants pissing white wine down his throat surfaces, I’m going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt.
I don’t care about Obama bowing, but it is kind of embarrassing that he botched it.
[John Hurt as Caligula]'Between you and me I had them either way… if he hadn’t bowed I’d have blogged that he bowed to the Saudi king but not to Japanese one…*
Obama’s the original “If he walked on water his critics would swear he couldn’t swim” kid.
As an American I can barely hold my head up. Oooh wait- I guess I’m bowing…
As long as he doesn’t sniff someone’s ass or lick them on the cheek I really don’t think it’s a thing.
I posted a cite upthread, which no one has yet contested, to the effect that it’s improper protocol in Japan to simultaneously shake hands while bowing.
As for other protocols, I’m sure you were aware before you even asked that they vary from country to country and that determining what they are lies within the domain of the State Department and various functionaries who are supposedly knowledgeable in these areas already or who are supposed to research them beforehand, and that as I am not a member of the State Department, nor a functionary thereof, I would be hard pressed to provide cites for them all.
But then again, you knew that already, didn’t you?
Who fucking gives a rat’s ass, though?
OK, he bowed. Meh. But did he really have to bow so fucking low? The guy’s head is practically touching the ground. It gives the appearance of abasement rather than greeting.
Actually, my cite contradicts yours. You are talking about that blog you linked to in post #21, right? That’s not a cite for protocol, that’s a blog. I’m looking for a real cite. I mean, the article I cited on bowing directly contradicts your blogger:
This book on business culture in Japan says:
So it seems that handshakes and bows are combined pretty commonly, especially when Japanese are dealing with Americans and Europeans, which is directly contradictory to what you said in post #21 (which you also said “I have no idea if this is correct or not”), thus it would seem that your information is incorrect.
I don’t really need a cite showing all possible situations the President might be in, just a cite showing that protocol is that he should never bow, or what the proper thing to do in the situation we are discussing should have been. But then, you knew that already, didn’t you? You’re just trying to evade the question, aren’t you?
I used to live in Japan and I have never heard of such a rule. It seems a bit strange to me to combine a low bow with a handshake, but it is not to my knowledge some horrible faux pas.
I am not inclined to take your cite’s word for it, since it also claims that the current Emperor of Japan is considered a Shinto god. This is incorrect. The current emperor is not and never has been considered a god in Japan.
Shut up you knob nobody cares.
No, what I’m trying to do is wrap up the threads I’m involved in so I can get to bed. I acknowledged that the cite I posted may be in error, and if it was and your cite is definitive (I don’t know that business protocol is the same as head-of-state protocol for that matter), then so be it. I don’t really care one way or the other. The main thing is that the president of the United States should not be bowing to other heads of state…or at least not as low as Obama has been doing. I don’t think anyone would be saying anything if Obama merely bent forward slightly, bringing his forehead down just a few inches as I’ve seen westerners do many times when addressing a Japanese. But the way he does it, it looks like he’s begging for alms or looking for a ring to kiss.
And besides, as I said above, other types of non-presidential behavior on Obama’s part concern me more.
Who gives a fuck? Seriously dude you’re unhinged and crazy if you actually care about this at all. Go back to listening to Glenn Beck.
If you don’t really care one way or the other, why did you try and make a point that what he did was wrong? Why did you try and make any point at all if you don’t care?
So now it’s okay to bow, just not a real deep bow? Is that your argument now?
Where is this reference you have that describes what presidential behaviour is (or should be)?
Still waiting for a cite that official protocol is that the US President should never bow. Have you got that cite yet?
sigh
I don’t listen to Glenn Beck. I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh. I don’t watch or listen to Sean Hannity, and I don’t watch or listen to Bill O’Reilly.
If you had said more I could undoubtedly show you were wrong about that too.
Presidents have to negotiate with other countries and sometimes have to try to keep them from doing things adverse to our interests and/or to human rights in various other parts of the globe. A weak or naive president has a much harder time accomplishing either, as those of us who care about such things find blindingly obvious.
And on preview: Snowboarder Bo, There’s no cite that says a married president shouldn’t get a blowjob from an intern in the Oval Office and yet I don’t think anyone of character would contend they should. There is no cite that a president shouldn’t call people racially offensive names, but I don’t think anyone of character would contend they should. There are all sorts of aspects of human behavior, as well as behavior by heads of state, that are known by all but don’t exist in written form.
And there are others which exist in written form but are not available to laymen or those outside the particular governmental department.
I’ll leave it to you to decide which is which, but as for me, I don’t honor disingenuous cite demands. You should know that by now.
If there is official protocol for bowing or not bowing, which is the claim, that should be easy to verify. I cannot find any such when I search. You claimed to know this was against protocol. How do you know?
My request isn’t disingenuous in the least, and it’s really shitty of you to try and say that it is. I’m looking for factual protocol, which you claimed existed, but I can’t find anywhere. Help me out and show it to me.
I like how you’re assuming Obama is weak and naive because he apparently fucked up some sort of bowing protocol at a ceremonial meeting. Should he have gone in bare-chested and carrying a machete? Christ you’re stupid.
If it had been a singular occasion, it wouldn’t have meant much one way or the other. But in conjunction with his numerous other diplomatic faux pas, his waffling on Afghanistan, and his whinging about Limbaugh, Fox and “teabaggers,” he’s not exactly coming across as a very strong, decisive or well-informed chief executive.
Well, let’s see: you jump to a completely erroneous conclusion as to my listening habits, and then you appear to castigate me for holding an outrageously ridiculous belief regarding what Obama should have done which you dreamed up yourself, and you call me stupid as a result.
I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t take your opinion of anyone’s intelligence too much to heart.
Dude, you can’t even show that this was a diplomatic faux pas. What “numerous other” ones are you talking about?
Evidently everybody at least stoops when giving Akihito some skin. President Karzai of Afghanistan, President Nguyen of Vietnam and his wife, The Governor General of Canada, members of one of the Canadian Olympic teams, and this EU official of some variety all did and the reason I chose these pics was I found them after 1 minute when I did a google image for Akihito greeted. Evidently Mme. Chirac actually peed while shaking his hand so I’m reasonably certain he’ll live through this.
Of course there’s also a practical consideration: Obama is 6’1-6’2 and the Emperor is is a tiny man, so a nod of the head is still going to make him a head taller. More likely is that Obama worships him as a divine descendant of the sun goddess and fears some kind of weird curse if he doesn’t, or he wanted to make Fox News shit a brick since he knows they’ll run with it and nobody else cares. (I’m almost positive he probably does or has done that from time to time.)
Well, he hasn’t declared any immoral and needless wars yet so he’s still ahead on points.
Isn’t it etiquette in some Asian cultures that your head is not supposed to be higher than the person you are presented to- especially if they are of high birth?