Posted on 04/09/2009 10:12:31 AM PDT by Plutarch
Did President Obama bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at last week's G-20 meeting?
Conservatives say yes – and some aren't happy about it. The White House, meanwhile, says the president did nothing of the kind.
Ben Smith has the story. As he notes, the president met Abdullah last week in London and appeared to bow to the Saudi leader, prompting outrage from some conservative quarters.
"The President of the United States executed a bow to a monarch so deep that he literally had to take a step back to balance himself," wrote Hot Air.
"No American President should ever make such an obsequious display to any monarch — ever," added the blogger.
(Memeorandum has links to much more reaction here.)
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(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
BUMP
I have read some comments that Obama got the king into trouble w/ the rest of the moslem world because he bowed from the waist, a motion reserved only for allah.
As such, the king is being accused in the moslem world of thinking he is greater than allah thanks to Obama’s bow that isn’t a bow.
He’s clearly bowing. That’s obvious.
He’s not “clearly” kissing a ring. That’s conjecture. The evidence doesn’t show, one way or the other, what his lips are doing.
No matter what, it’s a clear sign of obeisance.
Did CBS bother to watch the video? What do THEY say, after having watched it? What are the FACTS, if that concept is still operative in MSM circles?
And, by the way, will they report it on the evening news, or just on an obscure blog where they refrain from any analysis of their own?
He bent his knee, that is a genuflection. A sign of allegiance.
Bishop Ratzinger writes “In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the verb barak, ‘to kneel’, is cognate with the word berek, ‘knee’. The Hebrews regarded the knees as a symbol of strength, to bend the knee is, therefore, to bend our strength before the living God, an acknowledgment of the fact that all that we are we receive from Him.”
0 bent his knee before the king, a clear sign of submission. This was not merely an act of respect. It was a personal surrender of authority to a superior, in fact, the one who has mentored and sponsored him throughout his career.
Appeared? Appeared???
No, CBS, that is the fact that your lying eyes apparently can't report.
What it really appeared like was more like BUTT-KISSING.
CBS is planning on reporting the FACTS, but they’re waiting for a FAX to come in from a Kinko’s in Killeen, Texas that will clear this whole thing up.
No, they are just now getting around to covering it for the first time. Like so many other stories that the MSM would rather ignore, we have read about this on FR and other conservative blogs for days and weeks before it breaks out in the MSM, so it is old news to us.
But, remember, the shrinking group of people who get their news from the major media are hearing it for the first time.
Main Entry: obei·sance Pronunciation: \ō-ˈbē-sən(t)s, ə-, -ˈbā-\ Function: noun Etymology: Middle English obeisaunce obedience, obeisance, from Anglo-French obeisance, from obeissant, present participle of obeir to obey Date: 14th century 1 : a movement of the body made in token of respect or submission : bow 2 : acknowledgment of another's superiority or importance : homage
Main Entry: al·le·giance Pronunciation: \ə-ˈlē-jən(t)s\ Function: noun Etymology: Middle English aligeaunce, from Anglo-French allegeance, alteration of ligeance, from lige liege Date: 14th century 1 a: the obligation of a feudal vassal to his liege lord b (1): the fidelity owed by a subject or citizen to a sovereign or government (2): the obligation of an alien to the government under which the alien resides 2: devotion or loyalty to a person, group, or cause
Main Entry: gen·u·flect Pronunciation: \ˈjen-yə-ˌflekt\ Function: intransitive verb Etymology: Late Latin genuflectere, from Latin genu knee + flectere to bend — more at knee Date: 1630 1 a: to bend the knee b: to touch the knee to the floor or ground especially in worship 2: to be servilely obedient or respectful
Why they think they can lie about it and peopl will believe thm is beyond me. Obama has made it worse by insisting it wasn’t a bow when the video combined with the still shots clearly show he was bowing.
Dick Morris said it was because of some agreement he made with the G20 to allow them to oversee our banking system and gave up a lot of our sovernty over ourselves.
That is interesting. I have spent a considerable amount of time in the Kingdom as well as other Arab States and never walk around hand in hand with my associates. Moreover, when my Arab associates come to the United States, I do not walk around holding their hand.
The handholding occurs between friends as a general rule. Turks hold hands also.
The point is, it is NOT a gesture of subservience, which the salaam most definitely is.
Potential post of the day, yours.
Perhaps you have spent more time in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the UAE and Dubai than I have. And while there are some of their customs that I follow while I am there, we do not hold hands.
Moreover, the picture in question was taken in Texas, not Saudi Arabia.
Note to CBS: Watch the video, he bows!
CBS could watch a video of Slick and Monica in action and claim that maybe she was checking him for ticks.
"I, uh, am not BOWING to His Highness, King Abdullah the Glorious and Merciful Ruler of the Holy Sites of Islaam, here in this image. Uh, I had noticed that President Sarkozy had, uh, his fly open, and I, uh, wanted to help him adjust it before the um, group photo. This is, uh, quite the right wing distraction, filled with the typical paranoia and fear caused by people like Rush Limbaugh."
Holding hands is not a sign of subservience (though Americans think it's creepy). Never been to the Middle East, but I read extensively and I am sure that I have read in multiple places that holding hands in Middle Eastern countries is a sign of friendship (not homosexuality).
The POINT is that a bow or salaam from an American president demonstrates a SERIOUS problem.
We've come a long way from the days of John E. Ward.
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