"Then came the moment: When Mr. Bush [Sr.] approached
the emperor's casket, he bowed deeply."
The ongoing cable-and-blog dust-up over whether President Obama somehow
dishonored America's image by bowing to Emperor Akihito of Japan the other day
was reminiscent of another argument over the exact same issue 20 years ago.
It was a different president, of course: George H.W. Bush, who came to the
issue with some pretty solid credentials: as a young man who was shot out of
the sky by the Japanese. And it was a different moment: The funeral of Emperor
Hirohito, Japan's wartime leader, and father of the current Japanese emperor.
Mr. Bush was even newer to the presidency at that moment than Mr. Obama is
today. Barely a month in office, he traveled to Tokyo for Hirohito's funeral,
declaring it was the right way to honor a former enemy turned ally. It was the
first imperial funeral in many decades, a huge state event. And naturally it
poured rain on the guests; ladies in their finest kimonos and Sumo wrestlers
alike sank into the mud.
Then came the moment: When Mr. Bush approached the emperor's casket, he bowed
deeply.
Those of us who had lived in Japan thought nothing of it. That is how respect
is shown in Japan. But the pre-cable pundits were screaming, and soon one of
our colleagues, the late Gerald Boyd, asked Mr. Bush about it at a news
conference.
Mr. Bush danced around an answer for a moment, mentioning members of his
squadron who never came home, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur's decision to keep the
emperor system, as a way of unifying the Japanese people. Then he said this:
I'm representing the United States of America. And we're talking about a
friend, and we're talking about an ally. We're talking about a nation with whom
we have constructive relationships. Sure, we got some problems, but that was
all overriding and respect for the Emperor. And remember back in World War
II, if you'd have predicted that I would be here, because of the hard feeling
and the symbolic nature of the problem back then of the former Emperor's
standing, I would have said, "No way." But here we are, and time moves on; and
there is a very good lesson for civilized countries in all of this.
So did President Obama violate protocol? Well, yes, but not by bowing. He made
the mistake of both shaking hands and bowing at the same time, a big breach of
etiquette. The truth was that he was supposed to choose one or the other.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/presidential-bows-revisited/#more-53675
