By groveling to foreigners, you dis your own

In an earlier discussion, Paul Nachman wondered: if Obama’s deep bow to the emperor of Japan represents abasement of the West to the Other, isn’t it also self-abasement of the greatest egomaniac of our time? I replied:

He’s not abasing himself. He’s abasing America, which he represents. By abasing America, he’s glorifying himself over America. By trashing the dignity of the office of President of the United States, he’s asserting his superiority over that office.

The cartoonist Michael Ramirez has a similar though more pungent analysis of Obowma’s quintessential act of self-expression:

Comments

November 18

Stephen T. writes:

What I got from Obama’s bow in Japan was something a bit different. I flashed back on black Aftrican rulers who, even in the late 20th century, went about daily business wearing ridiculous crowns and robes, carrying jeweled scepters, and had rows of ostentatious, meaningless medals dripping from their chests. Or black preachers in the south who used to affect phony Shakespearean accents like lords of the court and spout hilariously overwrought language. There seems to be something in the culture that grasps any sort of affiliation with superficial, trumped-up pomp and pageantry, and is in some way validated by any connection to all that. While many whites may have been offended or amused by Obama’s self-conscious, decorous, palace bow, I think many blacks are really knocked out by that sort of thing when it is being played out by one of their own. I could almost hear the “oohs and ahhs” coming from swooning black American TV viewers.

Charles T. writes:

LOL! How Appropriate. And yes, that is how I believe Obama sees his own country.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 17, 2009 08:03 PM | Send