In middle eastern cultures, for males to hold hands and even give a kiss to each other is common and indicates genuine friendship. Bowing to another however represents subservience. Obama would have had to bend much further then that to pick-up something from the ground. (Unless his arms are not of the standard human proportion.) In that culture he should not have done it at all. This is yet another example of his naivety in International social protocols. At least he didn’t prostrate himself. (Maybe he’s holding that back for later.)

On the other hand in Japan and many other Asian countries, mutual bowing to each other is much more akin to a salute. It displays the honor and respect they have for each other. The depth of the bow is important, and for a forieng leader it should be little more than a nod. I’d have no problem with a President giving a friendly slight nodding bow there, because it doesn’t carry the same meaning of subservience.

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@Swill:

Anyone with half the brains of a goose understands why Obie’s bow of deference is importance.

Now we know why you don’t get it.

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“The knowledge that Obama felt the need to bow to the Saudi king is going to be floating around in everyone’s mind for the rest of his time in office.”

Yes, floating around the empty minds of morons on the right. Get a clue. This is right up there with Clinton getting a blow job from Lewinsky. Who the hell with a brain cares?

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Just to set the record straight for people who believe this was anything other than a bow, please explain the following:

1) The king extended his hand, then had to lower it to meet Obama’s.
2) The king and Obama’s hands were plainly together, and even appear to pump up and down while Obama is bending over. (Obama was in the middle of shaking hands as he bowed; do you typically look for things on the floor while shaking hands?)
3) Obama’s left hand remains on his leg until he stands back up, at which point he moves it to join his other on the king’s hand. (The WH claim of Obama grasping the king’s hand with both of his own only took place after Obama returned to the upright position.)
4) Obama’s head dips below the level of the king’s shoulders.
5) Nobody else appears to be examining the floor, although the men on either side of Obama and the king appear to look down in order to follow Obama’s motion.

To me, the fact that Obama bowed to a foreign king is disgusting but unsurprising, and I can’t imagine this having become a major issue or even coming to the attention of much of the country if it had just been ignored by the MSM and WH. However, when the WH released a flagrant lie about the event and the MSM conveyed that lie, the entire country was made aware of both the event and the WH’s willingness to use utter falsehoods as flimsy cover. Now they’ve got a real issue that isn’t just going to die. The knowledge that Obama felt the need to bow to the Saudi king is going to be floating around in everyone’s mind for the rest of his time in office.

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@Mike’s America:

Well, the moon will be full tomorrow night.

It’s not surprising that the bats are a flyin’.

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P.S. Did anyone else notice in that video update that Obama is talking with another leader after the Queen had sat down signaling that the rest of the leaders should also sit? He keeps yakking it up and is the last to sit down. HOW RUDE IS THAT?

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@Wordsmith: Oh my… where did you dig up this moonbat? I don’t think this one escaped from MY cage…..

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Yes, the darn universities and their educating of students. Turns them into liberals straight away! Maybe that’s because they are reading and getting the facts?

Been there, indoctrinated by that. It’s only when I left college that I realized how much BS was fed me.

Try again.

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Are you still in college?

What amazes me, Swilly, is the lack of self-awareness on your part. Citing Howard Zinn, linking to Soros and Fisk as though these partisan elitist so-called “intellectuals” are telling “the truth” rather than perceiving that it’s “truth” as seen through their distorted worldview lens filter.

I did you the courtesy of checking out your links (as though we’ve never seen that garbage before). Yet I see no evidence that you even know what the other side of the arguments are, if all you think of conservatives as represented and summed up by a Zinn quote. Absolutely classic!

Btw, Zinn himself has said the world would have been better off had America never existed. And yet we conservatives are the “anti-Americans”?

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Ok, so you’re not interested in history or the causal links to events. Yes, the darn universities and their educating of students. Turns them into liberals straight away! Maybe that’s because they are reading and getting the facts? Here’s the best explanation of why liberals are less “anti-American” than the so-called “conservatives” in America.

“You know, patriotism is not a matter of wearing a flag in your lapel, not a matter of this or not—patriotism is not supporting the government. Patriotism is supporting the principles that the government is supposed to stand for.” You know, so we need to redefine these things which we have come—which have been thrown at us and which we’ve imbibed without thinking, not thinking, “Oh, what really is patriotism?” If we start really thinking about what it is, then we will reject these cries that you’re not patriotic, and we’ll say, “Patriotism is not supporting the government.” When the government does bad things, the most patriotic thing you can do is to criticize the government, because that’s the Declaration of Independence. That’s our basic democratic charter. The Declaration of Independence says governments are set up by the people to—they’re artificial creations. They’re set up to ensure certain rights, the equal right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. So when governments become destructive of those ends, the Declaration said, “it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish” the government. That’s our basic democratic charter. People have forgotten what it is. It’s OK to alter or abolish the government when the government violates its trust. And then you are being patriotic. I mean, the government violates its trust, the government is being unpatriotic. – H. Zinn

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/258

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