Obama has made a series of serious diplomatic mistakes where he could be seen as insulting the English and kowtowing to Arabs.

Oh my gosh! The president really is a sleeper agent for the Islamofacists! We're doomed...

Holding hands and kissing in Middle Eastern cultures is protocol. Bowing, even to the king is right out. Subjects used to bow to the king, but in 2005, Abdullah said Muslims shouldn't bow to anyone but Allah. So I guess the good news is if Obama is a Muslim, he's not a very up-to-date one.

It's a lapse of protocol and an embarrassment, and it does have consequences. He didn't bow to any other monarch, and treated the Queen like a little old lady in a nursing home the day before. Apparently bowing is reserved for Saudi royalty. How will that play to foreign dictators who realize Obama wants so badly to be liked he'll humiliate himself to show how the US isn't any better than any other country?

And then the White House lies about it, saying it was a two-handed handshake from a giant to a midget. Obama is 6'2", the King is 5'6". Eight inches requires genuflection? Why then does his right leg go back and his left hand stay at his side? The video clearly shows a deep bow. So he bows, then lies, ruining whatever point he was trying to make.

Here's the real problem. Obama has made a series of serious diplomatic mistakes where he could be seen as insulting the English and kowtowing to Arabs.

If you can't understand how this can be seen as amateur hour to the rest of the world, or a deliberate policy of weakness towards other nations, then you really have no standing to be discussing foreign affairs.

It's a perfectly legitimate topic. And it showcases just how unprepared Obama is to lead. If he can't get protocol right (because he's tired, nervous, or ignorant), what will he do in a real crisis?

Protocol matters in foreign affairs. It matters in negotiations and in how the matters are played in the home press. Pretending it doesn't is just damn foolish.

This comment itself is ignorant of Middle Eastern culture. In the Far East, bowing to each other is the norm. In Saudi Arabia, you only bow to the king. It's pretty lame to accuse people of being "Islamophobic" when they have different reactions to incredibly different cultural contexts.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0409/White_House_No_bow_to_Saudi.html

Being a liberal must be great: If you want to betray something you believe in, just change what it's called and you're home free. No sacrifice or responsibility required.

If you can show where the King bowed back in a sign of MUTUAL respect you may save this rediculous straw man from going up in flames. But I doubt it.

My post should have been pretty clear in expressing that I thought the flap was much ado about not much. I view the issue as not reflecting particularly well on the WH Office of Protocol for not sufficiently briefing POTUS on what was expected/required. I give Obama a pass because he's clearly in OJT. So maybe he's smart in a lot of areas. He pooched this one, though.

But no big deal... it's nothing bigger than the pseudo-flap involving "Ich bin ein Berliner", i.e., nothing much at all.

People will read into it whatever they want to read into it. No stopping that, now, is there?

While I wait, I will prepare the fainting couch; it's clear it will be getting a lot of use here at OTB.

John Burgess, writing on OTB, continues a meme about the Obama Administration's "foreign policy faux pas," stepping in to defend Obama's bow to Saudi King Abdullah: "The fact is that Obama made a mistake. It is US diplomatic usage, dating......

If this, along with the silly vapors over the ipod gift, are the best that those who dislike the president have to work with, they are in for a really long 4-8 years...

I can't remember who, but a blogger labeled this the "OMG opposition". We are going to have 4-8 years of constant, "OMG Obama [insert tiny mistake]". It's as if Republicans are completely missing the point of people's outrage with Bush. While we all had a good laugh at the Bushisms, that's all it was, a good laugh. The outrage was against the Iraq War, Torture, Cronyism and other really big things that shaped the oppositions view of his disastrous Presidency. Republican's have a revisionist history of the Bush era, and it only makes them look petty when they think that this type of stuff plays to anyone but the previously converted.