Watch closely around the 1:37 mark. You can clearly see Obama bowing to King Abdullah. It's a quick and easy motion and if you blink you might miss it.
Up to now I, along with just about everyone else, has been willing to attribute Obama's serial diplomatic blunders to incompetence and ignorance, but now I'm starting to wonder. One by one he has systematically snubbed our closest Western allies while paying exquisite, and sometimes inappropriate, attention to the sensibilities of Middle Eastern despots. The CDs and Ipods seemed to be signaling to the Brits -- "We're just not that much into you" while something like this exudes deep and abiding respect and signals to the Muslim world that America's priorities are radically shifting away from the West and toward them.
I'm sure there are many who welcome this, but I sure don't. America is a Western nation and western values and intellectual traditions are central to our national identity. We are Americans. We are free men and women, and we -- most especially those who presume to lead us -- do not bow to tyrants.
