Yep, that is essentially Japanese for "grovelling" allright. I am glad they are saying it now. Their *honne* can come out now. They have been boxing it in for 48 hours now with their *tatemae* firmly on top of it out of politeness and embarrassment for the foreigners (in my estimate also because the incident involved their esteemed Emperor or anybody in the Imperial Household; they would have been much more candid and lucent about Obama's tomfoolery if he had done this, standing before PM Hatoyama instead. Some topics are to be approached in Japan very gingerly when it comes to the Emperor, even if he is not at fault about something). LOL!
There's where I diagree with the article a bit, maybe.
I'm *OK* with him doing the courteous little head-dip, maybe. I've seen lots of Germans do that, too and somehos it's good form --I even do that in the USA.
Where gaijin get into deep water is when they try to formulaically, "out Jap the Japanese" --sorry, but sometimes they even WANT you go act like the outsider..!
But here, he takes it to a new level, putting saccharine atop a chocolate fudge sundae. Sorry, but that just gross...