Flashback: NYT blasts Clinton for … almost bowing to Akihito
posted at 11:40 am on November 14, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
Both Allahpundit and I referenced this blast from the past at the time Barack Obama bowed to Abdullah earlier this year. It’s worth posting again, not just because Obama pulled another boneheaded protocol violation and bowed to an emperor, but in this case bowed to the same emperor with whom Bill Clinton almost committed the same protocol violation. Douglas Jehr, in a 1994 New York Times report, made it clear that had Clinton actually executed a full bow, it would have destroyed a precedent dating to the founding of the Republic:
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? …
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.
The New York Times didn’t have much to say after Obama’s bow to Abdullah despite having scolded Clinton in this manner for almost bowing to Akihito. Now that Obama has done “the unthinkable” twice, and this time to Akihito, will the New York Times have anything to say about it? Will any of the national news media inquire as to whether the Obama administration has changed American protocol from its 233-year norm of not bowing to royalty, and exactly what “hope and change” that represents?
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Some in Japan have asserted that what is being demanded is that the Japanese Prime Minister or the Emperor perform dogeza, in which an individual kneels and bows his head to the ground—a high form of apology in East Asian societies that Japan appears unwilling to do.[84] Some point to an act by West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who knelt at a monument to the Jewish victims of the Warsaw Ghetto, in 1970, as an example of a powerful and effective act of apology and reconciliation similar to dogeza, although not everyone agrees.[85]
Citing Brandt’s action as an example, John Borneman, associate professor of anthropology at Cornell,[86] states that, “an apology represents a non-material or purely symbolic exchange whereby the wrongdoer voluntarily lowers his own status as a person.” Borneman further states that once this type of apology is given, the injured party must forgive and seek reconciliation, or else the apology won’t have any effect. The injured party may reject the apology for several reasons, one of which is to prevent reconciliation, because, “By keeping the memory of the wound alive, refusals prevent an affirmation of mutual humanity by instrumentalizing the power embedded in the status of a permanent victim.”[87]
nondhimmie on November 14, 2009 at 7:42 PM
Sweet_Thang, GOOD NEWS: we don’t “have to” wait — we could get him out asap under the quo warranto statute- it’s a matter of our will as a country.
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When enough people REFUSED TO BE SILENCED AND DEMAND that Obama be removed from office because one can’t be BOTH a British citizen at birth and a U.S. natural born citizen at birth, we will have a new election and all his actions/programs/laws will be reversed.
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His own damning words (on page 26 of his autobiography “Dreams of My Father”) reveal that he was a British citizen at the time of his birth (due to his British/Kenyan citizen father).
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We fought a revolution to keep those with dual allegiances from becoming Commander-in-Chief/POTUS for the very reasons we are seeing everyday from this man. Most of the country and the military are left to question his intentions and loyalty- especially after Fort Hood & the KSM trial in NYC.
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Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz- we’ve had the power all along- all we have to do is USE IT: quo warranto
Millions of people are reading the legions of other conservative blogs that aren’t afraid to tackle this subject. We have to educate ourselves now to speak up & defend our country or forever (as they say at weddings) STFU.
NightmareOnKStreet on November 14, 2009 at 7:56 PM
in Dem land we call this Clinton Roolz. A Clinton has much different standards applied to them, and the standards do not apply to others, and that was before Teh One, imagine how likely they are to mention it now, HA! and as you can seer that liberal bastion the NYT DID spend a lot of time criticising Big Dawg
ginaswo on November 14, 2009 at 7:57 PM
I just have to wonder what Barry is thinking. And is there no one in the WH doing protocol yet? He didn’t even get the bow right. You don’t shake hands and bow. What an obsequious rube we have as president. Is it 2012 yet?
WarEagle01 on November 15, 2009 at 10:16 AM
Nah, I’d bow to the Queen of England. Too many swashbucklers as a child I guess, but that would be too cool. Big bow, “My Queen”…that would be awesome for the 12-year-old Sea Hawk alive inside any guy.
MarkT on November 15, 2009 at 10:45 AM
This fool understands ghetto ediquette. community organising activism and little else aside from what he learned of Islam as a child. His bow, if you noticed, is almost exactly the same as he did to the Saudi king and Keeper of the Two Mosques. For reasons they deem important, this is way to dimminsh his bowing to the Saudi King and allow them to say he bows to royality, which an exception noted for the Queen of England who got the ghetto treatment.
The problem maybe that it was not the persona of King that he bowed to when he bent knee and leaned forward into a bow in front of the Suadi King. Perhaps they are fearful that someone might make that connection in light of the current and potential future situations which cast him in a light favorable to Islamic goals; reduction then withdrawal from Afghanistan when his delaying results in a sitution too dire to remain; the possible release of the 9/11 conspiritors as a result of trials in civilian courts; and his efforts to hide the connections of the attack at Fort Hood with Islamic terroism which would make thing much more difficult for muslims living in our country that are preparing for bigger, less spontanious attacks.
Franklyn on November 15, 2009 at 2:12 PM
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