ShareThisThe official American attitude toward the king of England, and by extension royalty generally, is in the Declaration of Independence, the less-read part after the famous first two paragraphs. The signers were opposed to any kind of obeisance to an autocrat.
That attitude persists to this day, as witness the trouble President Barack Obama got into with conservative commentators for his deep bow to Japanese Emperor Akihito.
Presidential manners on foreign trips are the province of the State Department's chief of protocol, but that cut no slack with the conservatives.
Wesley Pruden of The Washington Times said the bow was "just this side of a full grovel." Former Vice President Dick Cheney said, echoing the signers, "There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone." He said our enemies would see it as a sign of weakness.
The White House said the president was only being mindful of another culture and trying to show respect for the emperor. But Obama's aides should have been braced for it because he caught a lot of grief for bowing to the Saudi king, Abdullah. Then-President George W. Bush also took heat for being mindful of another culture by holding hands with Abdullah.
But the fact is that every president, at least once in his term, will be tripped up by protocol.
Cheney himself caused a brief flurry when he showed up at a solemn ceremony in Europe, among formally clad world leaders in dark overcoats, wearing a poufy great hooded parka, knit cap and heavy boots. Our enemies probably saw that as a sign it was pretty cold that day.
Obama stumbled just days into his presidency when, as he boarded his Marine One helicopter, he startled the Marine crew chief by shaking his hand. Obama has since learned how to salute, a skill Bill Clinton never seemed to fully master.
The custom of presidents saluting members of the military is said to have originated with Ronald Reagan, who had a strong sense of stagecraft, and, politically speaking, only a president with a strong military background could stop the practice. Dwight Eisenhower, about as military as a person gets, never saluted; it was against military protocol.
The civilian salutes are probably going to stay with us. But the bowing should go. One reason is that we Americans just don't do it well because it's not in our tradition -- just the way the signers wanted it.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
