A Partial Bow To Reality

The Times partially covers the Obama bow!  David Sanger, who was in Tokyo at the time, remembers a Bush bow in 1989 that was not flagged as controversial by the Times at the time.  However, the Times still can't seem to finds their own 1994 coverage of Bill Clinton *not* delivering a "bow-bow" at the White House in 1994. 

Let's start with Sanger as of 2009, who eventually admits that the Obama bow was culturally tone-deaf and a "big breach of etiquette":

The ongoing cable-and-blog dustup over whether President Obama somehow dishonored America’s image by bowing to Emperor Akihito of Japan the other day was reminiscent of another argument over the exact same issue – 20 years ago.

It was a different president, of course: George H.W. Bush, who came to the issue with some pretty solid credentials: As a young man who was shot out of the sky by the Japanese. And it was a different moment: The funeral of Emperor Hirohito, Japan’s wartime leader, and father of the current Japanese emperor.

Well, yes - one might say that Bush had no need to establish his credentials relative to Japanese militarism.  We continue with Sanger today:

Then came the moment: When Mr. Bush approached the Emperor’s casket, he bowed deeply.

Those of us who had lived in Japan thought nothing of it. That is how respect is shown in Japan. But the pre-cable pundits were screaming, and soon one of our colleagues, the late Gerald Boyd, asked Mr. Bush about it at a news conference.

Let's flash back to the Times coverage of the funeral:

Then Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita and other Government representatives praised Hirohito in addresses. One by one, foreign dignataries approached the altar and paid their respects. Some merely inclined their heads; some, like President Bush bowed slightly.

What?  He bowed "slightly"?  I deplore the cover-up at the Times!  If they had accurately reported on what is now Bush's "deep" bow way back in the day, we could have bashed Bush contemporaneously.  (No worries - they bashed him anyway.  The John Tower nomination was shot down, the China leg of the trip went badly, and Bush-bashing was the rage.  Seems like yesterday.)

Let's cut to a younger David Sanger, who failed to mention the deep bow at all:

When Emperor Taisho was buried in 1927, the Government issued strict instructions about how mourners should dress, bathe and bow. For his son's there is only one hard and fast rule: Men will not be allowed into the funeral site without solid black neckties.

Whatever.  Eventually, Sanger brings us back to Obama:

So did President Obama violate protocol? Well, yes, but not by bowing. He made the mistake of both shaking hands and bowing at the same time, a big breach of etiquette. The truth was that he was supposed to choose one or the other.

Oh, now it's a "big breach of etiquette"?  Not big enough for the Times to mention outside of their on-line blog, but big.

What a joke.  Since the Times is evidently having trouble accessing their own archives, let's reprise their coverage of the Clinton 1994 dust-up:

THE WORLD
 
The President's Inclination: No, It Wasn't a Bow-Bow
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: Sunday, June 19, 1994

"IF I see another king, I think I shall bite him," Teddy Roosevelt once growled. Offered that opportunity with the Japanese equivalent last week, Bill Clinton turned out to have had quite something else in mind.

It wasn't a bow, exactly. But Mr. Clinton came close. He inclined his head and shoulders forward, he pressed his hands together. It lasted no longer than a snapshot, but the image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent President, and the Emperor of Japan.

Canadians still bow to England's Queen; so do Australians. Americans shake hands. If not to stand eye-to-eye with royalty, what else were 1776 and all that about? But Mr. Clinton, alas, is not the only one since George Washington who has seemed not quite to know what to make of monarchs.

There was that curtsy, during the Reagan years, when Lenore Annenberg, herself the chief of protocol, forgot herself entirely and did a little dip to greet a visiting Prince Charles. That prompted a stern warning from Miss Manners against those who might mock the effort that "was once put into freeing Americans from the necessity of bending their knees." Soon afterward, when Nancy Reagan greeted Queen Elizabeth II behind closed doors, her press secretary acknowledged that Mrs. Reagan had bowed her head but insisted, "It was definitely not a curtsy."

Hmm - I am appalled that they continued the cover-up of the Bush bow at the 1989 funeral.  OK, he bowed to a dead man in a casket, but the parallel should have been obvious.

With the imperial visit last week, official Washington was clearly determined to show that it knew well what courtesies should be showered on the 175th inheritor of the most formal throne on earth.

...

But the "thou need not bow" commandment from the State Department's protocol office maintained a constancy of more than 200 years. Administration officials scurried to insist that the eager-to-please President had not really done the unthinkable.

"It was not a bow-bow, if you know what I mean," said Ambassador Molly Raiser, the chief of protocol.

Well, that was then.  Whatever the old rules may have been, they can't possibly apply to the son of a woman from Kansas and a father from Kenya.

Comments

[glasater]

Zero shoulda bowed to Hu instead of the Emperor. After all China is our banker:)

[anduril]

Here's what I posted yesterday, very graphic and very relevant:

Sorry if someone else linked this already--this is a video linked at Drudge: World Shakes Hands... Obama Bows.... It's really rather cleverly done.

Sanger's bow-wowing about what people do or did at funerals is beside the point of what Obama did and other leaders do on ordinary state occasions. btw, I would be offended by a deep bow to a war criminal like Hirohito--sorry if that offends. Wait, no I'm not.)

[Jack is Back!]

He should have channeled the immortal words of Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), Mohawk:

"I bow to no man for I am considered a prince among my own people. But I will gladly shake your hand."

So, by bowing to the Emperor he is admitting that he is not a god nor an equal. Finally brought down to earth.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I still vote for the "he's a narcissistic idiot who won't listen to advice" explanation.

[EBJ]

So it's Obama's fault that when Royalty goes for the pocket kleenex a pocketful of change hits the deck? And I suppose you would deny him that 1934 Philadelphia struck mint penny - the only penny missing from his collection! - haters?

[andycanuck]

I'll just throw this in because it's a shot at the Obama bow apologists, Hosers and Aussies do bow to H.M. but it's only a nod (head bow) when you're first introduced and not a bow from the waist like Obama's. Only an Aussie receiving a special honour, like a knighthood, at a special ceremony would perform an Obama-style bow or something similar. (Canadians aren't allowed to receive Royal or British honours any more, so Bob & Doug or Terence & Philip would never bow like that even before our monarch.)

[hit and run]

Charlie:
I still vote for the "he's a narcissistic idiot who won't listen to advice" explanation.

...who has gotten pats on the head (or elected President, Nobel Peace Prizes, whatever) for aspiring to do things, even when they fail (cf. Altgeld, Annenberg).

[Sunzeneise]

Perhaps I'm missing a point, but how is it proper for one head of stte to bow to another head of state - if all nations are equal?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Perhaps I'm missing a point, but how is it proper for one head of stte to bow to another head of state - if all nations are equal?

Why do you think you're missing something?

Seriously, I do't have any compunctions about a little 10 degree polite keirei — and I love watching my Tibetan friends go nuts when I shake hands with a Rinpoche instead of doing gassho and all — but this was just silly.

[jimmyk]

I still vote for the "he's a narcissistic idiot who won't listen to advice" explanation.

That is undoubtedly part of the story, but it doesn't explain why his narcissism comes out as bow (versus a fist pump, a hug, a high five, or anything else). There's something in his psyche that makes him want to show obeisance to other cultures (while deriding his own country).

[clarice]

He only bows to heads of state who aren't Jewish or Christian--for the latter there's old dvds they can't lay or a refusal to publicly meet with them--for everyone else there's a carpet hug.

[J.R.]

I wonder what Miss Raiser would consider a "bow-bow?" BO was bent at his waistline 90 degrees to his legs. Would he have had to go completely 180 so his head was almost to his knees for it to be considered a "bow-bow?"

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Simple, America disgusts Obama.

[matt]

I wonder if he kowtowed to Hu Jintao?

[clarice]

Didn't, matt. Perhaps he has secret info that Hu is a Mehodist.

[James]

Simple, America disgusts Obama.

And most of us return the favor, hopefully more and more of us as we get deeper and deeper into debt.

[Gregory Koster]

Nope, the explanation is that The Once hadn't seen his reflection since he got out of the limo, and was feeling withdrawal pangs. Luckily the Emp's shoes were shiny enough so he could make out that glowing image if he bent over just far enough. Even more luckily, they weren't so shiny as to make a perfect reflection, which would have triggered The Once's overpowering reflex to kiss his own mirror image.

Sure would have made a good show, though.

[daddy]

Posted this about the bow late yesterday so hope you won't mind me throwing it out there again. Gives possibly a little perspective on how times have changed.

"Thinking about the spectacle of our bowing President and the follow-on posts of how to treat POW's I remembered something about a former Hanoi Hilton POW I'd heard of back during military training. He had used the servility of obsequious bowing to publicly embarrass his Vietnamese captors. A quick google led to this:

"Scott Blakeley’s Prisoner at War: The Survival of Commander Richard A. Stratton (1978) tells the fascinating story of Richard Stratton, a navy pilot who broke in torture and wrote bogus war crimes confessions. Stratton’s famous bow and his monotone confession pleased his captors at first, but embarrassed them later when they understood finally how and to what degree he disgraced them in public. Stratton knew that bowing was foreign to American culture. When he bowed not once but several times at an international press conference in Hanoi, he did so with full intent to destroy the event. The western press noticed immediately that his behavior was distinctly foreign to American culture in general, and asked again if the POWs in Hanoi were being "brainwashed" ? The North Vietnamese were then forced to respond to international scrutiny about their treatment of the Americans they held. As a result of Stratton’s bow, what looked like a propaganda victory for the North Vietnamese at first, was really an international resistance event and a vital turning point for the politics that affected the Vietnam War in general and the American POWs in Hanoi until 1973."

"Stratton Knew that bowing was foreign to American culture."
That's the point that Stratton's Hanoi cellmate, an outstanding man who by the was was my instructor, hammered home."

[sylvia]

These comparisons that the left are trying to dredge up are off. It's not that Obama bowed. A small bow would have been no big deal. A head nod. A little tilt of the shoulders. As the left uncovered, several former leaders have done so off and on, including Repubs leaders, on several different occasions for many years. It's that Obama BOWED. A big ole, kissing my own butt, bow.

Now it might seem trivial to parse the degree of the bow. But that was a deep bow, with a pause to make it clear he was bowing. There is something off about that. It's about body language, which is language after all.

Let's say of Obama would have kissed the guys foot. Let's say Obama would have bowed so far he could have touched the ground with hands and hugged his knees like a gymnast's stretch. Both of those would have been clearly innappropriate.

So where is the cut off in degree? Hard to say exactly. But I think safe to say any bow where he appears subservient, anything below chest level for example, is too far. No one asked him to do that. He did it on his own. And that body language, is language. And it tells us a lot about Obama.