You knew it would happen, RIGHT?

[DearAbby]

Obama’s bow in Japan sparks some criticism



WASHINGTON - Some American conservative commentators are seizing on President Barack Obama's deep bow to Japan's emperor during the weekend, accusing the U.S. commander in chief of groveling to a foreign leader.

Obama greeted Emperor Akihito, whose father ruled when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, with a simultaneous handshake and nearly 90-degree bow, sparking furious online commentary, much of it negative.

Obama's gesture on Saturday was not without precedent, however. Neither was the outrage.
U.S. presidents from both political parties often have been criticized for attempts at culturally sensitive greetings to high-ranking foreigners.

link
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33978533/ns/politics-white_house/?ocid=twitter

[JuniperLea]

1. Everything he does is wrong...

According to "some people." They've got nothing.

I'll just leave it at that:)

[prolesunited]

7. Yup

If he didn't bow, they would be criticizing him for not acting dignified on the world stage

[BlueJazz]

2. Ah...Yeah...Republicans and Their Politicians drive the USA into the shit-bowl and..

..they worry about somebody bending over too far.

Oh Brother ....

[Angry Dragon]

3. I do not know what the big deal is coming out of the right

They have nothing to talk about...

Either they are bending over so much they have their heads up their asses
or they are bending over kissing each others' ass

Perhaps there is a connection there with the right asses.

[cynatnite]

4. And the same RW windbags were okay with Bush's antics with other leaders. n/t

[tblue]

5. They mistake graciousness for weakness.

They got NO class.

[spanone]

6. 'if Barack Obama cured hunger, they would accuse him of promoting obesity'..eugene robinson

[tilsammans]

8. How come we didn't hear a peep when . . .

. . . Poppy Bush upchucked? Short memories, eh? :rant:

[Kerrytravelers]

9. Because, see, this is different than when then-President Bush held hands with Saudi leaders, as per

their custom. It's always different with someone has an (R) after their name.

What is sad is that the "media" reports this nonsense as if it is "news."

[MrModerate]

10. The non-brainless actually approve of a leader with some sensitivity to foreign customs . . .

(Although apparently you're not supposed to bow while making physical contact with the emperor). Conservative commentators just dig their holes a little deeper with such nonsense. At some point they will probably realize that charging up one loyal supporter while alienating three middle-roaders is not good electoral math.

[madokie]

11. I personally think President O exaggerated his bow to piss them off even more

or to help to ensure their outrage. He is not afraid of the beckanityrushes of this world and is flaunting in their faces to piss them off even more

[HughMoran]

12. What the conservatives say is nothing next to Obama's critics here

Bow shmow.

[imdjh]

14. Obama's critics here are thoughtful, and criticize thoughtfully. They complain that he hasn't done..

.... this or did that wrong. They don't call him Hitler and be done with it.

[HughMoran]

15. You're kidding, right?

If you want me to, I'll post a very long list of "thoughtful" criticisms.

[imdjh]

13. Maybe if we started calling Obama, "That Fucking (nword)" it would thoroughly disarm the right...

... and rip a hole in time and space. Seriously, educating the right doesn't help, because they don't care if they are right or wrong- they think they are clever. So if we just call the president the nword all the time, the right really won't have anything to sell on the air.

[rrneck]

16. Sure.

This was so much more dignified.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOnDatqENo

[guitar man]

21. Aargh !!

Beat me to it :rofl:

[liberal N proud]

17. They would be in an equally stupid uproar if he had not bowed

The GOP and their M$M talking heads are going to spin negatively every thing and any thing the President does.

Like the 4 year old who is going to be opposite their brother just because.

[guitar man]

18. Well, he didn't follow freeper approved protocol

This is how it's done

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOnDatqENo&feature=youtube_gdata


:rofl:

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

19. At least he didn't puke on him.

Like Bush Sr. did.

[dysfunctional press]

20. r-e-s-p-e-c-t...in their mind, u.s. presidents don't give it- they get it.

they just don't get it. :shrug:

[DearAbby]

22. One more Freeper Gem:

Washington Times op-ed: Obama lacks ‘blood impulse’ for what America ‘is about’ due to his ‘Kenyan father.’

Former Washington Times editor in chief Wesley PrudenIn a column today criticizing President Obama’s bow before the Japanese Emperor, Wesley Pruden, the editor emeritus of The Washington Times, claims that President Obama “seems never to have studied much American history” because he apparently doesn’t know that “the essence of America is that all men stand equal and are entitled to look even a king, maybe particularly a king, straight in the eye.” Pruden then claims this lack of understanding of America’s “essence” is “no fault of the president” because Obama’s father was Kenyan and his mother was “attracted to men of the Third World”:

But Mr. Obama, unlike his predecessors, likely knows no better, and many of those around him, true children of the grungy ’60s, are contemptuous of custom. Cutting America down to size is what attracts them to “hope” for “change.” It’s no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of “the 57 states” is about. He was sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.

Pruden has a history of writing racially-charged items. In 2005, he wrote a column criticizing the Senate for passing a resolution that apologized for never enacting an anti-lynching law. As Media Matters noted at the time, Pruden had previously made numerous “sympathetic statements about the Confederacy” and employed “a neo-Confederate activist in the Times newsroom.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/17/pruden-blood-impulse/

[debbierlus]

23. America needs to get over itself - we are beggars

I don't read much meaning into the bow by the President. I am sure he was just observing culture and trying to show respect. Neither a bad thing.

But, the fact is that America comes as a beggar nation to China. We live off their money. And, that gives them tremendous power over this country. Like it or not. I hate it. I hate the fact that we have sold our independence away for cheap and toxic goods for the profit of shareholders and executives. I hate the fact that we are indebted to a nation with such a horrible record of human rights abuses and backward treatment of women.

I hate the global economy powered by the poor to be fed off by the rich.

[dionysus]

24. plenty of DUers had a good pamper fill over the bow as well.