How low will he go? Obama gives Japan's Emperor Akihito a wow bow (Updates with videos, pic)

(New UPDATE: Monday 5:02 p.m. OK, it's not funny if you work at the White House. But for everybody else a new video at the bottom of this post will provide some chuckles about how the rest of the world chooses to greet the Japanese Emperor. Hint: It's different than President Obama.)

(UPDATES: 12:22 p.m. Saturday. A brief news video has been added below, showing the greeting in this photograph. Contrary to some claims, the video shows no reciprocal bow by the emperor, who traditionally bows to no one. And we've added a file photo from 2007 of Vice President Dick Cheney greeting the Japanese Emperor at the same residence in a different fashion.)

How low will the new American president go for the world's royalty?

This photo will get Democrat President Obama a lot of approving nods in Japan this weekend, especially among the older generation of Japanese who still pay attention to the royal family living in its downtown castle. Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference to a superior.

To some in the United States, however, an upright handshake might have looked better. (See Cheney-Akihito photo, right).

Remember Michelle Obama casually patting Britain's Queen Elizabeth on the back during their Buckingham Palace visit? America's royalty tends to make movies and get bad reviews and lots of money as a sign of respect.

Obama could receive some frowns back home as he did for his not-quite-this-low-or-maybe-about-the-same-bow to the Saudi king not so long ago. (See photo here)

How times change under Democratic presidents.

Back in 1994 when President Bill Clinton appeared to maybe perhaps almost start to bow to Akihito at a White House encounter, U.S. officials rushed to deny it was any such a thing. And the N.Y. Times chronicled the comedic drama here.

Akihito, who turns 76 next month, is the eldest son and fifth child of Emperor Showa, the name given to an emperor and his reign after his death.

Emperor Showa is better known abroad by the life name of Hirohito. He became emperor in 1925 and died in 1989, the longest historically-known rule of the nation's 125 emperors.

Hirohito presided over his nation's growth from an undeveloped agrarian economy into the expansionist military power and ally of Nazi Germany of the 1930's.

And, later, Japan became a global economic giant. Hirohito, along with Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who authorized the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, were much reviled abroad during World War II.

Historically, debate has simmered over how much of a political puppet Hirohito was to the country's military before and during the war.

Even after Democratic President Harry Truman ordered the two atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 1945, there were strong forces within Japan that wanted to continue to fight the Americans in the spirit of kamikaze suicide pilots.

But Akihito's father went on national radio, the first time his subjects had ever heard Hirohito's voice, and without using the inflammatory word "surrender," pronounced that the country must "accept the unacceptable." It did.

As the conquering Allied general and then presiding officer of the U.S. occupation, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, decided to allow Japan to keep its emperor as a ceremonial unifying institution within a nascent democracy.

Tojo, on the other hand, was hanged.

MacArthur treated Emperor Hirohito respectfully but, as his body language in this black and white postwar photo demonstrates, was not particularly deferential. 

(But then MacArthur was not known as a particularly deferential person, as Truman discovered just before firing him later. But that's another war.)

Akihito was born during Japan's conquering of China and was evacuated during the devastating American fire-bombing of Tokyo, which was built largely of wood in those days.

The future emperor learned English during the U.S. occupation, but, inexplicably, his father ordered that his oldest boy not receive an Army commission as previous imperial heirs always had.

Akihito assumed the throne on Jan. 7, 1989. Within weeks he began a series of formal expressions of remorse to Asian countries for Japan's actions during his....

...father's reign. In 2003, he underwent surgery for prostate cancer.

In 1959, Akihito married Michiko Shoda, the first commoner allowed to enter the Japanese royal family. That was two years before the birth of Akihito's future presidential guest, Barack Obama.

Joe Biden was already 17 by then. But he wasn't a senator.

(UPDATE: Here's a new video assembled by some clever College Republicans at the University of Connecticut. It's even got music and requires no explanation.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty; David Bohrer / White House (Vice President Dick Cheney is received by Emperor Akihito somewhat differently in 2007); Reuters (Obama bows to the king of Saudi Arabia earlier this year); U.S. Army Archives (Gen. Douglas MacArthur not bowing to Emperor Hirohito after World War II).

Comments

[David]

Wait until Obama meets Bin Ladin, Big O is going to kiss his feet.

[CS in Miamii]

Note to anyone trying to post an negative comment.

No way will they publish it.

There's a reason this article has 0 comments.

Obama makes me sick.

2012 can't come fast enough.

Go ahead censor this one too.

[Jayroo]

Matt Drudge can't spell or even proofread his headlines before posting them. What an idiot! Drudge, how low will ge go?

[Mark]

What a BOOB!

He looks more like a Rear Admrial than a Commander in Chief!

[John]

I wonder how low Obama goes when he greets a bank executive? He probably gets down on his knees.

[JRC]

Well, I'm no Obama groupie but there's a difference between offering a customary greeting to the leader of a respectable society, and bowing to the dictator of a xenophobic, racist, backwards 14th century culture. There's no doubt that The Chosen One will continue to spew his 'Look, look! I'm not Bush! I'm so beautiful' America-second apologizing, but this isn't comparing apples-to-apples.

[paula visner]

DISGRACE TO AMERICA!!!!

[Raymond]

What a disgrace!!! No american President have ever bowed before any King or Queen, now Obama can't eve keep his head up!! A tot al shame on our nation and before the american public, the 2010 elections cant come soon enough to stop this madness in Washington DC!!

[RUFUS LEVIN]

Never has ANY American President bowed to any foreign ruler. Only before God in Prayer. Now comes Obama who bows before all foreign powers and takes a stick to his own citizens and taxpayers. Can't understand it.

Must be a Chicago Black Man thing.

Bow and scrape.

[paula visner]

What a Freak!

[RightStuff]

Wow! Isn't Barack Obama respectful? He is such a sweet guy to everyone but the American citizens. He intends to enslave them, and make their home a third world country. Gag reflex.

[Dean]

Beta Male strikes again.

Can't wait for the groveling before the Chinese--he'll be prostrate on the floor before his masters.

[Porchhound]

I really think he was not bowing...just attempting to get some blood into his brain so he could make a decision....any decision! OR...if you look closely you can see a teleprompter screen on the floor...whatever!...you decide

[Mike S.]

As much as I dislike what President Obama is doing to the United States, what he did here, I think, was appropriate. The emperor of Japan, in my opinion, is a man of honor, and worthy of respect. However, bowing to the Saudi King was not appropriate. He is not worthy of respect. You need to take into account who the person is before you show respect. That goes for both international relations and personal ones. Some people are not worthy of respect. And who determines who is worthy of respect and who is not? You and I, individually. So there.

[R Anderson]

There should have been at least equal bows. Obama's lower bow denotes a subordinate relationship to the Japanese Emperor. Perhaps the rest of the world should learn how to greet an American President (equality among citizens).

[Mark T. Tillar]

Will some one tell our President that he is President of the United States, not some junior state senator or even a junior U.S. Senator.

The President does not bow or kneel. Period.

Some one tell him that to many of our fellow citizens have died establishing and defending this Country for over two hundred years to go back to bowing to King George III.

[Don]

Barak Hussein Obama is a disgrace who has embarrassed America. And why does his wife have 20+ Czars and Aids working for her on the tax payers tab? Do they think that they are Royalty too?

[TopBaxter]

A national embarrassment! Get this Dufus out of the White House.

[Jones]

US Presidents DO NOT bow to anyone.

This man is an embarrassment to the office and the institution of the Presidency.

[volt]

Bowing to the leader of Japan is confusing because he's not a Muslim!

[Thomas]

I lived in Japan during the eighties. Bowing is how you greet the Japanese. Americans,however are as uncomfortable bowing as the Japanese are shaking hands. So most Americans do sort of a half-way jesture involving a combination of both bowing and shaking hands, though I don't remember ever bowing as low as Obama did. Even though I very rarely give Obama any slack, on this issue you should definetly lighten up a bit and do the real investigative reporting the mainstream media has thusfar referred to do on Obama and his radical marxist/socialist agenda, or perhaps more info about how someone who was raised by communists and educated in extreme left-wing circles could someday become President
of the United States. Explain where the media was...please!

[Josh]

Since when is showing respect a bad thing?

[DavosSherman]

Some people are so stupid they should wear helmets, sad to say that our "leader" is one such utter and absolute moron.

A special thanks to Congress for allowing our debt to get to 1,028% of what we earn and for 96 years of allowing a mad counterfeiter to control our currency so we can send our president to lick the shoes of a communist emperor for more money.

GDP………….14 trillion baked 30% with imputations & Hedonics
Debt…………12 trillion
Social Security.18 trillion
Medicare A……37 trillion
Medicare B……37 trillion
Medicare D……16 trillion
TARP/TALP/PPIP..11-22 trillion
2 Wars………. 2 trillion

[Thomas in Newport]

Just more proof that Obama doesn’t know anything about US law or protocols. It is the law that no US citizen bows to another country’s ruler. It indicates then are a subject of that ruler. It shows that Obama wants the USA to be subjugated by other nations and placed under the rule of the UN in a world wide socialist government. He should be impeached!!

[fred]

The only thing this jug-eared moron won't bow to is the will of the people who he is supposed to be working for. He might as well go ahead and lick their boots, he's literally bending over so far. This idiot is in so far over his head he needs scuba gear.
Change...it's ALL you'll have left.