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While visiting Japan, and meeting with Japan’s Emperor Akihito,  President Obama (the leader of the free world) decided once again it was appropriate for the President of the United States to bow.

As The LA Times points out “Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference for a superior.”

This photo will get Democrat President Obama a lot of approving nods in Japan this weekend, especially among the older generation of Japanese who still pay attention to the royal family living in its downtown castle. Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference for a superior.

To some in the United States, however, an upright handshake might have looked better. Remember Michelle Obama casually patting Britain’s Queen Elizabeth on the back during their Buckingham Palace visit? America’s royalty tends to make movies and get bad reviews and lots of money as a sign of respect.

While this move may or may not be elevating his popularity abroad and solidifying his self-described moniker of citizen of the word. Back home most Americans see this as a sign of weakness and most critics say the president should refrain from this type of activity in public.

This is not the first time he’s bowed to a foreign leader, back in April of this year President Obama bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. Although the White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, denied it along with  Ben Smith at the Politico at the time, even CNN mildly scolded Obama for bow and the media for ignoring it.

Once again, until this administration, the standing rule for Americans has always been… American presidents do not bow to royalty!

I’m not sure this is the Change people were looking for but you make the call.

Update 9:20am Pacific:

Flashback: NYT blasts Clinton for … almost bowing to Akihito

Ed Morrissey @ Hot air reminds us of how the New York Times blasted Clinton for almost bowing to Akihito but has yet to admonish Obama for bowing to the same man nor the king of Saudi Arabia.

Both Allahpundit and I referenced this blast from the past at the time Barack Obama bowed to Abdullah earlier this year.  It’s worth posting again, not just because Obama pulled another boneheaded protocol violation and bowed to an emperor, but in this case bowed to the same emperor with whom Bill Clinton almost committed the same protocol violation.  Douglas Jehr, in a 1994 New York Times report, made it clear that had Clinton actually executed a full bow, it would have destroyed a precedent dating to the founding of the Republic:

It wasn’t a bow, exactly. But Mr. Clinton came close. He inclined his head and shoulders forward, he pressed his hands together. It lasted no longer than a snapshot, but the image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent President, and the Emperor of Japan.

Canadians still bow to England’s Queen; so do Australians. Americans shake hands. If not to stand eye-to-eye with royalty, what else were 1776 and all that about?  …

Guests invited to a white-tie state dinner at the White House (a Clinton Administration first) were instructed to address the Emperor as “Your Majesty,” not “Your Highness” or, worse, “King.” And in what one Administration aide called “some emperor thing,” an Army general was cautioned that he should not address the Emperor Akihito at all as he escorted him to the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.

But the “thou need not bow” commandment from the State Department’s protocol office maintained a constancy of more than 200 years. Administration officials scurried to insist that the eager-to-please President had not really done the unthinkable.