What's Wrong With These Pictures? - other than Obama is in everyone of them...

from American Thinker
by Randall Hoven
May 24, 2009

President Obama met the Saudi King, the President of Venezuela and the Prime Minister of Israel, with pictures provided below. The three countries represented in the pictures agreed with the US in UN votes 86.4% of the time, 9.0% and 6.3%. Can you match these percentages to the countries represented?

Obama meets Saudi King.



Obama meets Hugo Chavez (HO/AFP/Getty photo via Times of UK)



Obama meets Bibi (photo by Doug Mills/New York Times)



Answers: Israel voted with the US 86.4% of the time in the UN in 2007. Saudi Arabia agreed 9% of the time. Venezuela agreed 6.3% of the time. Israel's agreement percentage is the highest of all countries voting in the UN.
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Why Are You Bowing To Me???

Aide Denies Obama Bowed to Saudi King - That is an outright lie!

from Politico.com
by Ben Smith
April 8, 2009

The White House is denying that the president bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London, a scene that drew criticism on the right and praise from some Arab outlets.

"It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah," said an Obama aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

BS - start watching at about 50 seconds - this comment explains exactly what happened:

That was a bow...and an outright lie from the White House if they are denying it was... They say he was shaking hands with 2 hands...but he didn't extend his second hand until he was fully upright again, you can see his second hand at his waist level. A total lie from the White House!!!

Posted By: Sean April 08, 2009 at 04:16 PM

The Washington Times called the alleged bow a "shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate" and said it violated centuries of American tradition of not deferring to royalty. The Weekly Standard, meanwhile, noted that American protocol apparently rules out bowing, or at least it reportedly did on the occasion of a Clinton "near-bow" to the emperor of Japan.

Interestingly, a columnist in the Saudi-backed Arabic paper Asharq Alawsat also took the gesture as a bow and appreciated the move.

"Obama wished to demonstrate his respect and appreciation of the personality of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, who has made one of the most important calls in the modern era, namely the call for inter-faith and inter-cultural dialogue to defuse the hatred, conflict and wars," wrote the columnist, Muhammah Diyab.

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New York Times Theme Song: Silence is Beholden

Flashback: NYT scolded Clinton for almost bowing to royalty

When will the New York Times cover this, even to the extent they covered Clinton’s inclined shoulders? Or is the unthinkable in 1994 turned into the unmentionable in 2009, thanks to a national media that has completely sold out to Barack Obama?

from Hot Air.com
April 4, 2009
by Ed Morrissey

So far, the media has remained entirely silent on Barack Obama’s deep-waist bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. They used to defend American protocol a lot more closely, as The Anchoress discovered in doing research on the subject. The New York Times sharply criticized Bill Clinton for a mere inclination of his shoulders towards Japanese Emperor Akihito in 1994:

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.

The media took Clinton to task for even suggesting the unthinkable. Now they remain silent on Obama’s leap to the unthinkable.

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Obama Endorses Saudi Peace Ultimatum

from Joshua Pundit

April 04, 2009

Well, you knew it was coming:

US President Barack Obama reiterated his support for the Saudi Mideast peace initiative in a meeting with King Abdullah on Thursday night, the White House said in a statement.

The February 2002 initiative calls for a full Israeli withdrawal from all territories taken in the Six Day War, including east Jerusalem, and a "just settlement" to the Palestinian refugee crisis in exchange for normalizing ties
with the Arab world.

The leaders "reaffirmed the long-standing, strong relationship between the two countries," continued the statement after the two met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in London.

Yes, that must have happened during Obama's grotesque bowing and scraping act yesterday.

For those of you who are unaware, this 'peace ultimatum' is essentially an Arab plan for Israel's national suicide.

The Israelis give up the strategic Golan Heights to the Syrians and Hezbollah and all of Judea and Samaria (AKA the West Bank), including land legally purchased from the Arabs via the Jewish National Fund to the Palestinians. The Israelis also give up half of Jerusalem, which means that Jews will be denied access to their holiest sites and will have to watch their religious shrines desecrated by the triumphant Arabs, just as they were prior to 1967. Needless to say, the Arabs are unwilling to tolerate a single Jew living in their countries, so the Jews will have to be removed..at Israel's expense, of course.

Then, having made thousands of their own citizens homeless, unemployed refugees and having retreated to indefensible borders, Israel allows itself to be flooded by thousands of genocidal Arab `refugees' and their descendants.

There's absolutely no mention of a `just settlement' for the almost one million Jewish refugees ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948.

In exchange for committing what amounts to national suicide, the Jews of Israel get a guarantee of ill-defined `normalized ties' and peace from the Arabs.

Those `normalized ties' would last for as long as a dismembered vulnerable Israel manages to survive, and the `peace' would be the peace of the cemetery.

And keep in mind, none of this is subject to negotiation. It's an ultimatum for acceptance or rejection, just as it is. Even the Lefty and dovish Shimon Peres tried to regard it as a starting point for further discussions and was told in no uncertain terms that nothing in this proposal is subject to change.

President Barack Hussein Obama just endorsed it and as much has pledged to pressure the Israelis to accept it, knowing full well the Israelis have already said no.

This is of a piece with the news that the United States is definitely going to join the UN's 'Human Rights Council', where America will no doubt take part in the systematic demonization of Israel and the Jews while endorsing proposals to make criticism of Islam and sharia law a thought crime.

I think all but the most clueless can see which way the wind is blowing. And as for those genuinely deluded Jews who actually voted for this man, they may rest assured that the fallout will not be limited to Israel, and that the chickens coming home to roost will affect them as well, in a very painful and personal way. Accompanied by the usual shock and surprise, of course.

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Bending Over 101: The art of...

from Hot Air.com
April 3, 2009
by Ed Morrissey

We covered this yesterday when it happened, but in my estimation, the worst amateur moment thus far in the Obama presidency came when 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. Not just any monarch, either, but one of the most repressive among those nations friendly to the US.

Interestingly, this came just after Barack Obama met with another monarch, and the contrast between Barack Obama’s show of respect is striking. I put together this video to demonstrate it:

People criticized George Bush for holding hands with the Saudi king, but holding hands does not signify submission to another’s authority, and certainly not in the manner that Obama’s bow does here. Holding hands is a sign of friendship. And for those who believe that a bow is another sign of friendship, note that Obama didn’t execute a bow like this for the Queen of the UK, and the Saudi monarch doesn’t bother to reciprocate, either.

So what’s the protocol for heads of state? Anderson Cooper hinted at it in his coverage of Obama’s meeting with the British monarch:

When President and Mrs. Obama met the Queen tonight, there was a handshake, and both the President and the Queen both nodded respectfully to each other.

Was it a bow? Not quite. It was more of a, “I know you are a head of state and so am I. We are both heads of state together and this is what heads of state do when they meet other heads of state.” In other words they bow to each other without actually bowing.

Well, that certainly went out the door, didn’t it? And I’m certain that Obama’s fans will try to rationalize this, but my good friend Scott Johnson at Power Line notes that the DU had already put together a defense of Michelle Obama if she didn’t curtsy when meeting the Queen:

In fact, protocol dictates that she not do so.

Angier Biddle Duke, President Kennedy’s Chief of Protocol told this very poignant story…

Before the Kennedy’s first state visit to England, Jacqueline Kennedy asked Duke whether she should curtsy to the Queen. He told her no because she was the wife of the head of state and heads of state and their wives do not go around bowing and curtsying to one another.

Three years later, after her husband’s funeral, Mrs. Kennedy received guests in the White House family quarters. When Prince Philip greeted her, she curtsied to him. Duke was surprised because Mrs. Kennedy was a stickler for protocol and had a steel trap memory for such things. Noting his surprise, Mrs. Kennedy whispered to him:

“Angie, I’m no longer the wife of a head of state.”

Duke said he immediately left the room and wept.

So, don’t be surprised if Mrs. Obama does not curtsy to the Queen. Also don’t be surprised if she gets jumped all over for it - but she’ll be doing - or not doing - exactly what she’s supposed to.

Indeed. And President Obama shouldn’t have bowed to the Saudi monarch, either. No American President should ever make such an obsequious display to any monarch — ever.

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