President Obama’s recent trip to Japan caused a stir when he greeted the Emperor with a 90-degree bow. The President’s supporters are claiming that it was protocol, but it most certainly was not. Bowing between equals involves a 45-degree bow. Never does a party on equal terms with the other perform a 90-degree bow (unless the other is reciprocating, of course). These deep bows are performed by people in inferior positions, for example you will see car salesmen bowing deeply to customers leaving their parking lot. You also see clerks giving deep bows to customers in department stores and students giving deep bows to their teachers. Yes, it is a sign of respect, but it is a sign of respect given by a person in an inferior position to someone else who is in a superior position. Moreover, you do not perform such a bow while shaking someone’s hand. As far as I’m aware, there is nothing offensive about doing so, it’s just not done.

Personally, I do not think any American, much less the President, should be greeting foreign dignitaries with deep bows (all men are created equally and all that jazz, you know?). I think it just shows that Obama is inexperienced and lacks a proper understanding of how he should handle himself as President (much as his failing to cover his heart during the National Anthem did during the primaries).

On the other hand, the Emperor has no real power and is only a figurehead, so the goof did not really symbolize anything like his bow to the Saudi King did. From what I’ve seen on Japanese websites, the Japanese people are simply treating it as a goof. No one here thinks the United States has lost face because of the bow. I’m just glad he didn’t get down on the ground and do a dogeza (to sit with your feet folded under you and bow so that your face pretty much touches the ground). All in all, I think goofs like this are the least of our concerns when it comes to what the Obama administration might do to the future of the US.

Do you remember back when right-wingers used to joke, “If a liberal Democrat is elected president, and commander-in-chief, we’ll be reading terrorists their Miranda rights”? Do you remember that? It was funny, wasn’t it?

Yes, I remember that. I’d have to say I found it more frightening than funny. I also remember people telling us not to worry, that Obama was serious about keeping our nation and our soldiers safe…

Yes, the Japanese author was referring to Palestine as the egg. The problem is that it’s not Israel versus Palestine. It’s Israel versus the entire Arab world. How Israel can be described as the wall is beyond me. Furthermore, let’s go ahead and forget about the rest of the Arab world and pretend that the only players in the conflict are Israel and Palestine. Hamas sends rockets into Israel on a daily basis. These rockets target Israeli civilians. Are the Israelis really expected to live like that? I think President Obama put it nicely when he said, “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to [sic] do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”

Hamas is deliberately targeting civilians with these rockets. Despite this utterly despicable behavior, Murakami is going to side with the “egg?” He’s going to side with the perpetrators of reprehensible acts because they are the “little guy?” How morally blinded can you get? Will he choose the side of justice if Israel should one day become the weaker of the two after years of terrorism and proxy wars with Iran and Syria? Does he really have to wait until then to condemn terrorism?

It was the Palestinian people that elected Hamas. Hamas terrorists hide themselves among the civilian population to increase casualties. Is Israel supposed to refrain from retaliating because the terrorists use women and children as shields? That’s an easy thing to suggest, but as Obama pointed out, if you’re in that situation, you’re going to do everything in your power to stop the terrorism and protect your nation.

The violence can end overnight. All that has to take place is for the Palestinians to quit engaging in terrorism against Israel. Israel does not engage in unprovoked attacks. Every military action by Israel is a reaction. If the violence on the Palestinian side were to stop, the conflict would be over just like that. They could then begin negotiations on a peaceful two-state solution. That’s going to be quite hard, though, since Hamas refuses to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

Hamas is ready to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders but “it will not recognise Israel,” the Islamist movement’s exiled chief Khaled Meshaal told a news conference Monday.

“We accept a Palestinian state within the June 4 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital — a sovereign state without settlements — as well as the right of Palestinian refugees to return, but without recognition of Israel,” he said.

Isn’t that nice? So they’re willing to negotiate with Israel as long as Israel agrees to cease to exist. Yep, all this violence, it’s Israel’s fault.

Meshaal was making his first public comment following two meetings in Damascus with former US president Jimmy Carter, who said earlier Monday Hamas told him it would accept the right of Israel “to live as a neighbour” if a peace deal was approved by a Palestinian referendum.

Jimmy Carter is an embarassment to the United States and a useful idiot to terrorists.

“The Bush administration has indicated to me that tomorrow (Friday) they will open the U.S. border to 100 Mexican-domiciled trucking companies,” DeFazio said. “This is a sad day for America.”

“This administration is hell-bent on opening our borders,” DeFazio said, “but has failed to require that Mexican drivers and trucks meet the same safety and security standards as U.S. drivers and trucks.”

“That’s simply unacceptable,” he continued. “The administration is essentially adopting a faith-based paper system without adequate protections for public safety.”

…Spencer charged the White House has intentionally pursued a strategy designed to keep the Mexican truck demonstration project “below the radar,” and avoid a public outcry on talk radio and the Internet such as occurred over the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, with Dubai Ports, and again with President Bush’s two failed attempts to jam a comprehensive immigration reform bill through the Senate.

“The White House does a much better job keeping Mexico informed than the U.S. public or Congress,” Spencer said pointedly. “Since March, we have credible reports that the Bush administration has been telling groups in Mexico that the one-year pilot program is merely a formality. Bush administration officials are willing to say in Mexico that once the one year had elapsed, the border would be wide open to all Mexican trucks.”

Spencer charged the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is “making up the rules as they go along” for exactly how the Mexican truck demonstration project would be launched, operated, or evaluated.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the Bush administration is trying to manage the news so the Mexican truck issue does not explode on the American public like Dubai Ports or the Kennedy-McCain comprehensive immigration reform bill did,” Spencer said. “The White House spin never stops.”

“Why is the Bush administration preparing to issue visas to the Mexican drivers for six months?” Spencer asked. “This is the first guest worker program, whether the White House wants to admit it or not. Canadian drivers don’t have to have visas, so why would a Mexican driver have to have a visa, especially a visa valid for six months?”

Victor Davis Hanson writes in his latest article, Popularity Contest,

The more confident a nation is, even when poor, the more likely it seems to admire America. Some of our best supporters turn out to be one-billion person India (59 percent favorable rating), Japan (61 percent), and South Korea (58 percent) — all democratic, capitalist juggernauts, and appreciative of liberal American trade policy and U.S. military support.

Hanson asks, “should we Americans value the friendship of such democracies — or that of a China that cheats on international trade accords and intimidates its neighbors?” He goes on to observe,

No doubt when the Bush administration leaves office, and should a Democratic one replace it, our approval ratings will rise with our present detractors. But they may also decline among our friends who will learn that U.S. open markets, free trade, and reliable military support in times of crisis are now objects of left-wing criticism. Note in this regard that world opinion toward both China and Russia is turning unfavorable. That distrust will only increase as both begin to flex their muscles — the former gobbling up oil contracts from the most murderous regimes, the latter selling the same rogues anything they need to foment unrest.

I’d like to add a little more about Japan. Despite its constitution’s prohibition of the use of military force, it sent peacekeeping troops to Iraq in solidarity with the US when many western European nations were criticizing us. Since it only retains a self-defense force, Japan is not as militarily powerful as England or Israel, but walking down the street in Japan I often see children and adults sporting t-shirts imprinted with the American flag. I don’t think there is another nation on earth where so many people admire the United States, and the survey results cited by Hanson above seem to concur. There are certainly people who criticize the US in Japan, but the majority supports us and considers us friends.

Somehow “thousands have been killed” is never qualified as those mostly butchered and blown up by insurgents–since the loose use of the passive voice lends a general sense that somehow Americans are directly involved in, or responsible for, the killing.

I don’t see how the death toll has anything to do with whether the US was right in going to Iraq or not. What is the number of casualties that would have been acceptable? Sure, the death toll is depressingly high. But most of the casualties are caused by terrorists blowing up fellow Muslims. How can the US be blamed for that? If a police officer arrests a woman’s abusive husband and the neighbor kills her, is the police officer to blame? It doesn’t make any sense to blame the US for the actions of terrorists. Then again, liberals don’t want to blame anyone for their own actions. It is always someone else’s fault. No murderer deserves to be executed, because it always turns out the poor guy was made fun of when he was in school or his daddy left him. It’s all the same. Personal accountability is a thing of the past.