Obama's low bow subjected to scrutiny
- Source: Global Times
- [02:12 November 17 2009]
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By Gao Xiaohui
US President Barrak Obama has come under harsh criticism for his low bow in greeting Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko on Saturday at the Imperial Palace in Japan.
Obama, at over six feet tall, was seen bending to nearly a 90-degree angle to the Japanese royalty. The gesture will certainly credit the president in Japan, where the low bow is a reflection of deep respect and deference to a superior.
The exaggerated respectful posture came on Obama's maiden Asian trip after he was described as America's first "Pacific president"and vowed to play a positive role in Asia's future.
Addressing 1,500 people, Obama pledged his "unshakeable"commitment to Asian security and insisted that the US would not be "cowed"by North Korea's nuclear tests, the Mail newspaper reported.
"This is where we engage in much of our commerce and buy many of our goods. And this is where we can export more of our own products and create jobs back home in the process."
"And our efforts in the Asia- Pacific will be rooted, in no small measure, through an enduring and revitalized alliance between the United States and Japan,"he added.
A senior administration official dismissed the criticism, in telling Politico that the US president was simply observing protocol by bowing to Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.
"I think that those who try to politicize those things are just way, way, way off base,"he told the website.
But in his homeland, the reaction is surely not what Obama's protocol officers expected.
"How low will he go?"was the name of a blog in the LA Times. It unfavorably compared the bow was to the upright greetings by the former US vice president Dick Cheney and Douglas MacArthur, calling the latest "wow bow"undignified and showing a lack of understanding of history.
Contrary to US tradition of not deferring to royalty, the bow was even a shock in displaying of "fealty to a foreign potentate,"said an editorial in The Washington Times.
"By bending over to show greater respect to Islam, the US president belittled the power and independence of the United States,"the paper said in an editorial, referring to Obama's April bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia during the G20 Summit.
To some in the US, however, an upright handshake might have looked better, the swamppolitics website suggested. "Remember Michelle Obama casually patting Britain's Queen Elizabeth on the back during their Buckingham Palace visit?"
However, Obama is not the first to come under criticism for being suspected as an obsequent US president.
Similar problems had taken place with former president Bill Clinton when he welcomed the Japanese emperor at the White House in 1994 by a non-committal semi-bow.
