It used to be a point of pride that Americans bowed to no one (ie, we are a free people we answer to no one but ourselves), and so presidents espoused this idea and shook hands, embraced, kissed, but never bowed to foreign rulers as it is a sign of subservience.
Now, I don’t believe that Obama was bowing to show subservience, he was bowing because that’s what he thought was proper to do in that situation. He’s new to this kind of thing so I’d be willing to cut him a break. However, avoiding this kind of thing is what his staff are for. The amount of foreign protocol gaffs that he has made are astounding. (Giving the Queen of England an Ipod? After giving the PM of England a set of DVDs?) Again, I cannot blame these on him, its not like he has time to give thought to such things, but his staff does. They *edited*ed up big time and made him and the US look bad on the world stage.
Eventually we must again place this blame on Obama because he hired this group of incompetents. Again, he probably didn’t hire them directly, but some one he hired hired them. The Chicago machine that he brought with him to Washington is probably competent in other areas, but foreign protocol is new to them and Obama should have found someone else with more experience to do their jobs. He didn’t so now he and us get to look bad.
And to think that they made fun of Palin for not having foreign policy experience.