I'd been avoiding the controversy over whether or not Barack Obama bowed to the Saudi despot Abdullah during the G20 summit, mostly because (a) clearly he did and (b) I didn't think it was, in the greater scheme of things, that big a deal.
What is a big deal is lying about it. Which is what Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs did the other day.
Word to the wise, guys: there are cameras everywhere and just about every public thing a president does is recorded and disseminated. You keep doing that sort of thing, people beyond the Royal Order of Wingnuts are going to start to question your credibility.
2 comments:
i am kinda enjoying the dance and obfuscation over the whole thing.
but what is the difference tween bowing to a king, and recognizing similar acts of deference when in the presence of QE2?
to this american mind, nothing.
yet, there was criticism when michelle dared to brush against Her Royal Untouchableness.
i call bullshit.
i'm on michelle's side in that one.
I hear you, Gino. Where I stood on the business with the Queen was this -- I agree that we don't owe her any paticular deference, but at the same time there's no reason to offend her, either. It took on particular resonance after Obama's brain-dead gift of DVDs to Gordon Brown that he couldn't use because they were in the wrong format.
If it were up to me, I'd elminate all the silly gift-giving between heads of state anyway. It doesn't make a lot of sense to give a token of your esteem to someone you don't especially esteem anyway. But it's not up to me and therefore we should follow whatever the protocol is.
And the larger point is that it demonstrates the utter falsity of the conceit that somehow the Obama administration is going to use "smart diplomacy" and improve relations with other nations after the depredations of Chimpy McHitlerburton and his cast of hayseed knuckledraggers. If you can't even get the basics down, you're not going to make any progress.
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