Bows and Codes.
POTUS arrived in a torrent of rain at Shanghai just after midnight local time and motored to the RON hotel for the beginning of his two-day state visit to the dictatorship of the Beijing cadre. The town hall meeting with the Shanghai students, including questions from email, is the featured performance of the first day. Spoke to Mary Kissel at Hong Kong re the POTUS trip so far, and she emphasized that the bow to the Japanese Emperor Akihito was bizarre and puzzled Asia, that the POTUS remarks in Singapore about encouraging US exports and rebalancing trade were coded language for a weaker dollar, that the Asian leaders are alarmed and demanding that the US contribute to dollar stability, that the POTUS refusal to speak of human rights in public is a mistake read as a show of weakness, and that the Beijing leadership does not respond positively to weakness as if it is good manners. Mary Kissel made the additional argument that in a one-party state, which is by definition an uncivil society, there are no avenues for political diversity and dissent. It is critical to a strong future for China that the United States provide support to the democrats. Stormy weather, onto Beijing. (Below, Nixon bows to the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, 1971, and the emperor bows back.)
THIS BOW ENDS THE DEBATE AS TO WHETHER POTUS BOWED TO ABDULLAH.
As explained last night: It's a rookie move.
Also a rookie move is that POTUS in Shanghai is still campaigning. He can't get enough adulation. He also can't seem to make a tough decision. Exception: Obamacare. Terrorist Trial in NY is another rookie move, so unpopular, hopefully it'll go away
The only people that Obama is willing to oppose are the American people. I think he has come to realize that the vast majority of Americans will never take kindly to his policies. Neither will he abandon his ideology that brands Americans as stupid, wasteful, and corrupt.
Obama still is flesh and blood, human like us. He too needs support and encouragement in order to carry on. Early attempts at currying favor with those most vehement in their hatred of the United States have failed. Those whose ideology includes a vision of the United States in its entirety smoldering like the ashes of the World Trade towers have shown that they will not compromise. Next on the list are merely the corrupt, who view a weakened U.S. as translating into enhanced strength for themselves. No sign of altruisms here; only hard-knocks positioning for advantage.
Personally, I have always felt that Obama himself belongs in with the ‘smoldering ashes’ crowd. So deep is his distain for his country. Those are the people he had been drawn to first – and then was summarily rebuffed. No telling if this might have caused him to moderate his views or if he still intends to show that he is indeed one of them by bringing the ashes of America (and Israel) into the initiation circle.