Blog Focus On Barack O-Bow-Ma
Blog Focus is Technorati's daily roundup of the top stories as told by the bloggers of the world. Each day five posts, no matter how popular or nascent, will be selected by editors to portray a general unscientific reaction to discussion points around the 'Net.
It started out as a simple diplomatic excursion to the Far East. And it ended with everyone focused on this:
Everybody sing along!
♪ Do doo ... d-doo doo (OBAMA BOW!) do doo doo doo... ♪
Did President Obama offend the Japanese by bowing to Emperor Akihito? Are Americans pissed at him bowing to a king, which destroys everything the American Revolution stood for? Or is this totally a fluffy weekend non-story? Let's go to the bloggers.
• ABC News | Political Punch — Jake Tapper asks an old friend to help clear up some confusion, and his Japanese Empire expert settles the score. Everybody's wrong about this. Those on the right forgot about President Nixon's bow to Hirohito back in the '70s, but the prez's form this weekend was way off. "Obama's handshake/forward lurch was so jarring and inappropriate it recalls Bush's back-rub of Merkel."
• Lakeshore Laments — Wisconsinite blogger Kevin Binversie doesn't see the big deal over a U.S. president bowing to a emperor, although he's in agreement that the form was all wrong. "The bow as pictured makes it look like he's a lowly busboy while meeting the feudal head of Japan. Someone in the White House's cultural liaison office botched this one and made their boss look like a fool. They ought to be sacked for that."
• Donklephant — While John Burke's post about how the White House wasn't accurate when he called Obama's bowing "protocol," perhaps a more interesting development was a-brewin' in the comments, where readers weren't all too happy with the overblown coverage of this story: "Why is this news? I don’t have a problem with you criticizing Obama for important things i.e. action or inaction on policy issues. Who wants to read about how American presidents don’t bow to anyone – what’s wrong with being respectful of other cultures? Let’s get back to the important issues"
• Zennie62 — Zennie Abraham isn't at all amused by the ignorance of other cultures displayed in the media: "Obama's 15 degree bow to The Emperor of Japan was correct. I disagree with ABC's Jack Tapper in that it is proper for one to give their hand in greeting while bowing. So both the right and Tapper are wrong."
• Undercover Black Man — And what of the Japanese response to this? Many comments translated seem very laudatory, but "Undercover Black Man" finds one man perceiving the bow as some sort of nationalist victory. "All kinds of nationalist comments such as amazement that a nation defeated would be bowed at in this manner, and ‘Long Live the Emperor!’, and also abject surprise at Obama bowing like this — racial ephitets are also made about Mr. Obama in disdain (for example, referring to him as ‘kuronbo’ (or ‘little black boy’)."
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