Conservative

By Nick Jacob

“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?” This is an excerpt from a New York Times article from 1994, which criticized then-President Bill Clinton for almost bowing to the emperor of Japan.

Flash forward to 2009 and to the G-20 summit in London, England. As President Barack Obama was going around greeting leaders from the world’s largest economies, he came to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. Obama extended his right hand, but instead of simply shaking hands as he had done with every other leader, he proceeded to bow waist-deep to the Saudi king.

Needless to say, this is an unbelievable breach of protocol, and one that is inexcusable for Barack Obama to have made. American presidents do not, and have never, bowed to foreign leaders, regardless of whether they’re royalty or not. Obama’s Chief of Protocol Gladys Boluda should have told him that. Bowing shows allegiance, or “fealty,” as The Washington Times put it. It is an act of submission, traditionally meant for the subjects of a king, and not for the king’s peers.

As you can imagine, The New York Times was even more outraged by this incident than they were by Clinton’s in 1994. Or at least they would have been, if they weren’t too busy ignoring the story, as every other major media outlet did, with the exception of The Washington Times.

Fortunately, we have YouTube, which has played and continues to play a major role in keeping politicians accountable for everything they say and do. Shortly after the incident occurred, video of it was posted on YouTube, and thousands of people proceeded to watch our president bow to the Saudi king. I would also encourage you to ask yourself if you want your president bowing to the leaders of other nations. I certainly don’t.

Two of the president’s main goals were to secure more combat troops from NATO allies for the war in Afghanistan and to gain support for a $1 trillion global-stimulus plan. While ambitious, both goals failed miserably. His global-stimulus plan was rejected, and he was only able to secure a short-term commitment of 5,000 additional noncombat troops from our allies. These troops will help to secure Afghanistan before the elections in August but will leave the fighting to Americans.

Another one of Obama’s goals was to convince allies and adversaries to rid themselves of nuclear weapons. Ironically, just hours before his speech, North Korea launched a rocket capable of carrying a nuclear warhead over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. Obama denounced the launch as “a provocation,” and then told his audience in Prague, “Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.” We’ve heard this song and dance before. Violations haven’t been punished, and words have meant absolutely nothing.

Along with the North Korean launch, news came out last Thursday that Iran is now running 7,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges. All this while the United States, along with the United Nations Security Council, sits around and drinks tea. If Obama is serious about ridding the world of nuclear weapons, he might want to start by making sure that Iran and North Korea don’t acquire them in the first place.

While many on the left, both here and in Europe, will likely see Obama’s trip as a success, I see it instead as a trip that had a fair amount of style but very little substance. Obama chose to repeatedly apologize for the United States and the past eight years under President Bush ­— sentiments the Europeans loved.

The United States doesn’t need, nor does it deserve, to be apologized for. It is not perfect, but it is also a good and honorable country. The United States is indeed that shining city on a hill that Reagan talked about. We should never feel the need to pander to the Europeans ­— or anyone else for that matter — for approval. Obama would do well to remember that on his next trip overseas.

Reach columnist Nick Jacob at opinion@dailyuw.com.

Liberal

By Chris Jordan

President Barack Obama has just returned home from his first overseas trip as our newly-elected leader, and my, what a difference an election can make.

The president made a surprise stop in Iraq to visit the troops and consult with military and political leaders there. At home, the definitive image that I kept seeing over and over as I watched the news coverage was of Obama embracing an excited American soldier, as those around her all but tripped over each other to get a close up snapshot of the new commander in chief.

George W. Bush’s last trip to Iraq is seared into our minds for different reasons. The definitive image from that visit is one of the president ducking a flying shoe hurled at him by an angry reporter.

So, in this sense, Obama’s trip has passed “the shoe test.” It was not an absolute embarrassment, as some on the right would have us believe.

The fact that Obama’s trip went fairly smoothly doesn’t mean there weren’t some slip-ups along the way. Those who have criticized the president’s performance typically cite several “protocol” blunders. Namely, Michelle Obama’s brief touching of the queen’s back.

“You just don’t touch the queen!” they angrily contend.

They also complain about the gifts that the first family bestowed upon the queen, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his sons, which were admittedly, pretty lame. I’m sure next time, Obama will come up with something more creative than stuff you can pick up at any Best Buy or Target.

This trip was less about iPods and DVDs and more about American foreign policy. As Obama takes the reins, America’s influence, credibility and leadership role in the world is on the decline. Whether or not you agree with the Bush administration’s policies, it is difficult to dispute the fact that he left the United States more isolated, loathed and militarily strained than at any time in recent history.

It’s Obama’s job to turn this decline around, and his trip was a positive first step in that process.

At the G20 meeting, the president may not have been able to accomplish all of his lofty goals, but he left London with some solid agreements. The G20 agreed to fight against protectionism, illegal tax havens, and pledged more than $1 trillion to the International Monetary Fund to stimulate world trade. Those moves probably won’t solve the economic crisis, but at least the summit was not derailed by German and French dissent.

On the military side, Obama got commitments from NATO allies to send 5,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to aid U.S. efforts there. It’s short of what the administration was hoping for, but Europe sending more troops at our request was inconceivable under Bush. Obama appears to be making progress at restoring trust with our old allies.

Perhaps the president’s greatest achievement, however, was his symbolic effort to redefine what the United States means to the people of Europe and to Muslims in the Middle East.

Obama succeeded in changing the tone of the nation from “You’re either with us or against us” to “Let’s listen to each other and work together.”

He reached right out to the Muslim people, something that a despised George Bush could never have done. At a town hall meeting in Turkey, he made it perfectly clear that “America is not at war with Islam.” That absolutely needed to be said for any further progress to be made in the Middle East.

Ultimately, the goodwill Obama has sown needs to be backed up by concrete actions before it will translate into trust among Muslims and other skeptics. Obama’s trip, the tone he struck and the way he reached out to the people of the world has laid the foundation for the restoration of this trust. The rebranding of America’s image will ultimately undercut the conditions that allow terrorism to flourish, thus making us safer.

While the trip may have been a bit short of policy successes, the symbolic moves that Obama made may pay dividends later, as the world works to recover from the pain of the recession and from the conflict that has marked recent years.

To say the trip failed because Obama gave Gordon Brown DVDs absolutely misses the bigger picture.

Reach columnist Chris Jordan at opinion@dailyuw.com.

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