Via Hot Air, comes this interesting story from 1994:
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.
(…)
Guests invited to a white-tie state dinner at the White House (a Clinton Administration first) were instructed to address the Emperor as “Your Majesty,” not “Your Highness” or, worse, “King.” And in what one Administration aide called “some emperor thing,” an Army general was cautioned that he should not address the Emperor Akihito at all as he escorted him to the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.
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.
There don’t seem to be any available pictures of the Clinton-Akhito moment, but this, my friends was most certainly a bow-bow:
And that’s just sad
November 14th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Tomorrow he’ll sign the papers to give the Hawaii since we were wrong to shoot back. What were we thinking.
November 14th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I’m beginning to think Obama has a screw loose, despite his smooth-talking, smart-guy Harvard exterior.
Even I know one Chief of State doesn’t bow to another, even if not from a republic born in 1776 that defeated the Japanese “Empire” in war and magnanimously allowed its emporer to continue to reign.
Obama’s chief of protocol surely advised him that the etiquete of the occasion required that he be dignified and say something both respectful and cordial while taking the emporer’s hand and giving a slight bow of the head — more a formal nod than a bow — as any gentleman might greet any other in a formal way (but never lowering his eyes when making that nod).
Obama’s die hard fans will say what’s the bid deal. This is so trivial. But it’s not trivial at all. It will be viewed by leaders of other nations as another sign of his inexperience, naivete, and even over-eagerness to please.
November 14th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Footnote to the above: as Chief of State, the President EMBODIES the nation. I think Obama simply has not got his head around this yet, perhaps because we Americans have gotten so used to informality. Other peoples and especially their leaders, however, notice what our President does or doesn’t do. This is why so many Britons were offended by Obama’s silly gifts to PM Brown and the Queen.
November 15th, 2009 at 4:10 am
I have posted absolute proof on my blog — The Purple Center — that this bow was not in anw way required by protocol, as the White House is claiming. Check it out:
http://thepurplecenter.blogspot.com/2009/11/white-house-busted-obama-bow-to.html
December 3rd, 2009 at 12:37 pm
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