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Date Posted: 17:38:45 04/08/09 Wed
Author: Katt
Subject: Why is this stuff never on the news?

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Obama_bow_king/2009/04/08

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[> Can't see it... -- SB, 08:07:13 04/10/09 Fri [1]

thankfully tho because Newsmax is about the right-wingiest rag out there. ((shudder)) :-)

Anyway I don't know what you mean because it is all over the main stream news also. As usual tho, conservatives do a big roar without going back in the archives to find prior Presidents (GWB included) doing the same and more and find themselves being hypocritical yet again.

Presidents have been bowing to the Saudi's for decades...I find it totally hilarious comments dissecting the various pictures out there.

"Well...Obama's bowing TO him, Bush is just bowing to get a medal FROM him. (I wonder what the reaction would be if Obama bowed his head to receive King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit?) or "Holding hands with the King is just THEIR way."

LOLOL

Hell, why shouldn't he bow? He IS a Muslim after all and a fellow jihadist that will eventually attack his own country and Israel....all under the GUISE of being POTUS. He's good, but we have him figured out. Be afraid...be very afraid...

;-)


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[> How about this point of view? -- DizzyDeb, 07:13:21 04/13/09 Mon [1]

Kathleen Parker: Yes, Obama did bow to the king, but let's lighten up

Published: Sunday, Apr. 12, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 5E

About that bow.

Did he or didn't he – the president of the United States, that is – bow to Saudi King Abdullah in a deferential greeting? And if he did, is it of great – or any – consequence?

From the outrage emanating from those who can find little to admire about the current president, one would think Barack Obama had given the German chancellor a back rub. Or kissed the royal cheeks of the queen of Spain.

Both of which, in fact, George W. Bush did while president. The left went wild over les faux pas du George. Now, it seems, it's the right's turn to display equal pique.

When will we overcome?

No one of either party has cause for casting stones in these matters. Whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, Americans are often formidably awkward around monarchs.

Do we buss one or both checks? Do we kiss the ring? Do we dare to eat a peach? Do we bow, curtsy, extend our pinkies – or shine our shoes? It's complicated, this parlor game of politesse. But it does matter. When you're the leader of the free world, every gesture and word counts.

It ain't easy being parfait.

It is also not in our DNA to bow to monarchs or to act beholden to anyone save God. We kneel before no human. Yet occasionally we are required to behave politely in countries that still cleave to their pomp and circumstance.

For such purposes, we have hirelings to instruct us in questions of protocol. We wonder lately, where they are? Who didn't tell Michelle Obama that one doesn't put an arm around the queen of England, no matter how endearing we renegades might find it? Who didn't tell the president that the United States does not bow, especially not to the rulers of countries where women are less valuable than sheep?

Might we need a change of palace guard? Paging Letitia Baldridge?

Baldridge, the towering grand dame of all things proper, was the ruling knuckle-rapper during America's Camelot period. Was the Kennedy administration the last time Americans didn't have to worry that their first family might embarrass them?

Whatever their other flaws, the Kennedys could be counted on to mind their p's and q's in public. If there were any question, Baldridge – officially White House social secretary and chief of staff to Jacqueline Kennedy – was there to fill in the blanks.

Manners aren't complicated, Baldridge once told me. "Manners are simply showing consideration for others."

Which is to say, you do as the Romans. Or the Austrians (who speak German, not Austrian, Mr. President). That doesn't mean we compromise our own values in the process. Hence Rule No. 1: Americans don't bow to monarchs.

I've now watched the tape of Obama's bow a dozen or more times. It is simply not possible to accept an anonymous White House official's insistence that Obama was merely reaching down to take the king's hand and had to bend over because of the height difference.

Not to name-drop, but I've met the king and I've met the president. We're not talking Gulliver and the Lilliputians. Even if Obama needed to reach down for the king's hand, why not let the king raise his hand of his own volition? When I shook hands with the king, he seemed to know what to do.

To any objective observer, Obama's bend from the waist quacked like a duck. It was … a bow. Clumsy, embarrassing and unbecoming a president, yes, but not an act of treason or, as one newspaper put it, a gesture of "fealty to a foreign potentate."

Obama was probably trying to be respectful and, it appears, may even have lost his balance a little. On a bright note, he didn't throw up on the king, as George H.W. Bush managed to do upon Japan's prime minister's lap during dinner. Quite the unfortunate little mess, that.

We elect presidents for a variety of reasons, though not usually for their aristocratic bearing. And few of them are presidential out of the starting gate.

We are, alas, commoners, one and all. And proud of it, apparently. Our forefathers, moreover, spilled blood so that we wouldn't have to bow to kings and queens.

So it is. And, one hopes, shall ever be.

In the meantime, given the season of second chances, we might grant the Obamas a little slack. We might also nudge them to clean house, politely of course, and invite Ms. Baldridge to tea.


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[> [> My take on the bow = for what it is worth -- Jeannine, 13:00:59 04/13/09 Mon [1]

so silly that they are denying that it was a bow.... that being said:

I didn't like it when Dubya kissed the same king either - and walked around holding his hand. I do know that the custom in Saudi is to kiss and hold hands, we used to laugh at the men walking around holding hands over there... of course we laughed behind our hands because we are smirky Americans... and they don't like women in Saudi... and we didn't want to get arrested by the religious police.... but I digress.

The bowing sucked. The kissing sucked. But don't deny it was a bow. Honestly!


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[> I quite agree -- DizzyDeb, 13:43:02 04/13/09 Mon [1]

It was a bow and a very awkward one at that. The thing I find amusing is how much energy is being spent on The Bow. And I thought Kathleen Parker said it quite nicely this morning - "Is it of great - or any - consequence?"


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[> [> yeah.... I just can't stand Kathleen Parker -- Jeannine, 17:30:02 04/13/09 Mon [1]

so I hate to give her any credit!


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[> [> So the bow to a Saudi King isn't newsworthy but that freakin dog is? -- Katt, tired of hearing about Bo, 13:03:44 04/16/09 Thu [1]

The things the media DOES choose to pounce upon and shove down our throats just baffles me.


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