Upon returning home from his 8-day tour of Europe and the Middle East, President Barack Obama has been greeted with some pretty harsh criticism over photographs and video footage which show him bowing to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia during the G20 Summit.
While the White House has denied the bow and the mainstream media has largely ignored the political gaffe, it has not gone completely unnoticed.
The Washington Times called the bow a “shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate”, which runs contrary to a long-held American tradition of not deferring to royalty. “By bending over to show greater respect to Islam, the US president belittled the power and independence of the United States. Such an act is a traditional obeisance befitting a king’s subjects, not his peer. There is no precedent for US presidents bowing to Saudi or any other royals,” The Times continued.
The Weekly Standard reiterated the tradition, stating: “American presidents do not bow before foreign dignitaries, whether they are princes, kings, or emperors.”
The White House has denied that President Obama bowed to the King. One Obama aide spoke anonymously to Politico.com, stating: “It wasn’t a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he’s taller than King Abdullah.” The Saudis themselves believe it to have been a bow. Muhammah Diyab, a commentator for a Saudi paper, approved of Obama’s gesture and says that he saw it as a clear blow:
“Obama wished to demonstrate his respect and appreciation of the personality of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, who has made one of the most important calls in the modern era, namely the call for interfaith and intercultural dialogue to defuse the hatred, conflict and wars”.
So, was it a bow? if it was, is it really that big a deal? an uproar over a show of respect?
I was on Youtube just a little while ago and I came across this somewhat funny (well, to me anyways) video... considering the last posting was also about Dean Singleton.. fitting to put it now I suppose ... Coincidence I found it right now though? hey, I wasn't searching, I just found it! Check it out, let me know what you think... Dean Singleton, chairman of the Associated Press board mistakenly calls U.S. President Barack Obama, Obama bin Laden.
U.S. officials have taken "very seriously" a plot to assassinate President Barack Obama involving a Syrian man who was arrested late last week in Turkey, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
But the officials strongly cautioned that American presidents are frequent targets of threats that are all watched very carefully, and in this case the alleged plotter did not appear to get anywhere close to Obama during his European tour.
The officials also noted that while Obama gets more threats than usual as the first African-American U.S. president, this particular threat did not force any change to his schedule.
"Life goes on," said one of the officials familiar with the matter, who suggested the threat may be getting more attention because there has been a heavy international focus on Obama's first overseas trip since taking office.
White House officials declined to comment on the matter, citing a policy of not talking about security and threats around the president. U.S. Secret Service officials spoke only briefly about the case.
"We work closely with the host country whenever there is an arrest, which we are doing in this matter," Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said.
The plot was first reported by the Saudi Arabian newspaper al-Watan, which revealed that Turkish security services arrested a man of Syrian origins Friday in connection with a plan to kill Obama during his visit to Turkey. Obama was in Strasbourg, France, on Friday for a NATO summit and did not arrive in Turkey for the final leg of his trip until Sunday.
The Saudi paper reported the suspect, who was carrying an Al-Jazeera TV press credential in the name of "M.G.," confessed to authorities after his arrest that he and three alleged accomplices plotted to stab Obama with a knife during the Alliance of Civilizations Summit in Istanbul, which Obama attended on Monday evening. The U.S. officials confirmed those allegations, but stressed to CNN that the information provided by the man is still being verified.
Al-Jazeera's bureau chief in Ankara, Turkey, Yucef al-Sharif, told the newspaper his news organization knew nothing about the man and suggested he may have obtained a forged press credential. According to U.S. officials, it's unclear whether the man, a permanent resident of Istanbul, had obtained a real press credential.
On Sunday, U.S. and international journalists covering Obama's trip did face more extensive searches of their baggage than usual by the U.S. Secret Service before boarding a press charter flight from the Prague, Czech Republic, region to Ankara. The same extensive searches were conducted Monday before a flight from Ankara to Istanbul.
But U.S. officials downplayed the possibility the more extensive searches were done out of concern that plotters may have infiltrated the media. Instead, the officials suggested that since Turkish security officials had not necessarily handled such a large crush of media before, U.S. Secret Service officials simply wanted to go the extra mile in their searches.
U.S. President Barack Obama called for the elimination of nuclear weapons on Sunday, calling them "the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War" during a speech given just hours after North Korea launched a rocket in defiance of international requests not to do so.
Obama said his government would "immediately and aggressively" seek a ban on the testing of nuclear weapons.
"Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be checked -- that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction," Obama said to a crowd of more than 20,000 outside the Prague Castle gates.
"This fatalism is a deadly adversary," he said. "For if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable."
Obama indicated that the United States would host a summit within the next year that would include discussions to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.
He also sharply rebuked North Korea for launching the rocket, which the international community believes was a test of the country's long-range missile technology.
The U.S., Japan and other countries believe that the North Koreans could use a missile in the future to carry a nuclear warhead.
"North Korea broke the rules once more by testing a rocket that could be used for a long range missile," Obama said. "This provocation underscores the need for action -- not just this afternoon at the UN Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons."
During a meeting with European Union leaders later in the day, Obama called for a joint statement condemning the North Korean move. That statement is expected at some point on Sunday.
"North Korea's development of a ballistic missile capability, regardless of the stated purpose of this launch, is aimed at providing it with the ability to threaten countries near and far with weapons of mass destruction," a joint EU-U.S. statement said.
Obama backs Turkey's inclusion in EU
Obama also urged the European Union to welcome Turkey as a full member of the 27 nation bloc.
"Moving forward toward Turkish membership in the EU would be an important signal of your (EU) commitment to this agenda and ensure that we continue to anchor Turkey firmly in Europe," he told EU leaders.
Turkey has long been seeking to join the bloc, and Obama's comments were a reaffirmation of U.S. support for that goal.
Following his meeting with EU leaders, Obama flew to Turkey; the final stop in his inaugural trip oversees.
The American leader's two day visit to Turkey -- the only Muslim member nation of NATO -- is intended to strengthen ties between the two allies. Obama will address the Turkish parliament and visit the mausoleum of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He'll also do some sightseeing.
The visit, which is Obama's first to a Muslim country, is seen as symbolic in terms of unity and strategy, as the new administration tries to improve the U.S.' tarnished image abroad.
They've sung his praises on social networking pages, calling him a "hero," "the greatest man of our time," "a legend." They've said he deserves to be knighted and should be decorated with medals. They've cried out for his amnesty and some have even proposed serving time for him.
The man that hundreds of thousands of Facebook users honor is none other than Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who was sentenced on Thursday to three years in prison for hurling his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush.
The double-whammy size 10 shoe toss, (neither of which hit Bush) , took place in December at a news conference held in Baghdad, Iraq. In many traditional Middle East circles, throwing shoes at someone is considered a grave insult.
To do this to an American president surrounded by Secret Service agents, no less, was as shocking to riveted viewers who watched the footage later as it was to the president himself.
"First of all, it's got to be one of the most weird moments of my presidency," Bush said later. "Here I am getting ready to answer questions from the free press in a democratic Iraq, and a guy stands up and throws his shoe. ... I'm not angry with the system. I believe that a free society is emerging, and a free society is necessary for our own security and peace."
Expressing their own freedom on Facebook, a worldwide fan base rose up to laud al-Zaidi's actions. They formed hundreds of fan pages and groups, big and small, serious and light. One is even called the "Shoe-Throwing Appreciation Society."
Mike Trainor, 28, was watching a football game when a news break brought footage of the incident across his TV screen.
"I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen," said Trainor, a Queens, New York, stand-up comedian behind "Guy Who Threw His Shoes at Bush," which has attracted nearly 270,000 fans.
The comedian may have created the post for laughs, but he quickly learned how loaded the issue was.
"It grew into this crazy thing," in which Bush supporters began to weigh in on message boards calling al-Zaidi supporters "a threat to America" and insults in reaction flew, he said. "It shows people have a lot of passionate feelings about it, that's for sure."
One message board on his page, titled "YOU GUYS HATE AMERICA," drew 384 posts in reaction. The creator started it with these words: "seriously you guys are all a**holes. why would you be happy about some freaking foreigner throwing his shoes at the leader of the free world? I don't care if he's dumb he's my president of my wonderful country ****"
Interspersed amid the groups of fans were those that spoke out against the al-Zaidi worship. "That shoe thrower is not a hero," attracted 94 members, many of them with Arabic names.
One London poster said the shoe thrower "did nothing but bring shame upon us iraqis [sic]," Another from Halifax, Nova Scotia added, "I dont care about Bush but this guy was very disrespectful to the Iraqi Prime minister who was standing right next to him [sic]."
But the shoe-thrower fans, at least in the world of Facebook, seem to far outweigh those who decried his actions.
"This site is intended to express the appreciation of those who share the frustration and anger that you expressed when you blew Mr Bush those boot-kisses [sic]," reads the description on "Thank you Muntadhar al-Zaidi," a nearly 500-member page created by a teacher at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
Protests of the journalist's arrest and now sentence brought Arab and Muslim demonstrators to the streets. But what Facebook has shown is that al-Zaidi's angry expression resonated with those beyond his religion and region. From England and Uruguay to China and Bush's own red, white and blue, supporters have made noise, at least virtually.
"We're talking about a common man, like me and you," who was "tired of years of lies from a self-called 'freedom saver,' " said Matteo Ferigo of Padova, Italy, the 30-year-old creator behind "Save Muntadhar al-Zaidi," which has 116 members. "I understand that his act was not so civil, polite or 'politically correct,' but I also understand how Iraqi people can see George Bush and what he represents to them."
Ari Vais, the creator of the page, "Free the Iraqi shoe throwing journalist!," said his own history taught him the value of free expression.
"I was born in the Soviet Union, where dissent like this was cracked down on severely," said Vais, a 39-year-old Queens, New York, musician. "We came to America when I was a boy because we knew that people should be free."
What al-Zaidi did was a reflection of the democracy Vais thought Bush intended to spread.
"We were supposed to be liberators, and what America stands for is freedom of self-expression and human rights," he said. "All he did was throw a couple shoes. And he missed! It was political theater and not jail-time stuff."
But it was serious business. Anyone, no matter where they live, would be tackled by Secret Service and face charges for such an attempted assault on the president. If al-Zaidi had done this to say, Saddam Hussein, one has to wonder what would have come of the man who's now celebrated.
The shoe throwing, because it was so shocking, proved great fodder for late-night talk shows. Comedians, beyond Trainor, had a field day with this one. It inspired online games for people who wanted to play al-Zaidi.
Matt Love of Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada called the Iraqi journalist's move "an act of great courage" and said that in showing his disdain for Bush, "He spoke for many millions of people."
The 52-year-old retired Washington state department of transportation worker believes everyone can learn from the shoe thrower.
Commenting Thursday on several fan pages, including one calling for a Nobel Peace Prize for al-Zaidi, Love suggested that people turn out for Bush's March 17 speech at the TELUS Convention Centre in Calgary.
"Lets [sic] show some solidarity...and lob some loafers," he wrote. "Will the Canadian government lock us up for 3 years? Let's find out."
Reached later in the day, however, he assured news media that this was written tongue-in-cheek.
"Let me be clear," Love said. "I won't be throwing shoes at anyone."
An expert on Lincoln photography thinks a photograph found in Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's family-owned album showing President Abraham Lincoln in front of the White House could be one of the last photos taken of the 16th president before he was assassinated in 1865.
Grant's great-great grandson Ulysses S. Grant VI had seen the previously unpublished image in the general's personal photo album, but didn't think much of it until he scrutinized it earlier this year.
"I started to think that it might be the White House," said Grant, a construction business owner from Springfield, Missouri. "Then I started to look at the height difference between the people in the photo."
Thinking that the towering individual commanding the attention of the other people in the image could be Lincoln -- who stood 6-foot-4 and is the nation's tallest president -- Grant called Keya Morgan, a renowned collector and scholar of Lincoln and Gen. Grant photographs, to see whether his suspicions could be verified.
Morgan, who owns the world's largest collection of Lincoln artifacts and original photographs, persuaded Grant to take the small photo out of the album to see whether any clues could be found on the back -- particularly the name of the photographer.
"If you don't know who the photographer is, it's like not knowing who your father and mother are," Morgan said.
Sure enough, the seal of photographer Henry F. Warren appeared on the back, along with an inscription: "Lincoln in front of the White House," dated 1865. Grant recognized the handwriting as that of his great-grandfather and Gen. Grant's youngest son, Jesse Grant. Those indicators, along with a revenue stamp used from 1864-66 to raise money during the Civil War, helped convince Morgan that the photograph could be the well-documented missing photo from Lincoln's last "sitting."
According to Morgan -- who cites Lincoln's secretaries John Hay and John Nicolay -- Warren took the last three photographs of Lincoln on March 6, 1865, just two days after his second inauguration.
Morgan says Warren was desperate to take pictures of Lincoln, so he staged the first act of paparazzi photography. According to Morgan, Warren first took photos of the president's son Tad on his pony. The following day, Warren gave the pictures to Tad and told him to summon his father. Morgan says that Warren was already set up to take the photo outside the White House, and that Lincoln gave him access afterward to take two more portraits on the White House balcony.
Will Stapp, founding curator of the National Portrait Gallery's photography department and a professional photograph appraiser, agrees with Morgan's assessment of the long-lost image.
"The figure itself, the physique -- in looking at it under a magnifying glass, I can see the shape of his beard; I can see the hairline," Stapp said. "It's similar to the impression you get from other photos taken of [Lincoln] from the same distance, like at the Gettysburg Address and his inauguration."
Stapp and Morgan also say it appears that Lincoln is wearing the same clothes in the outdoor photo as he wore for the portraits taken the same day.
As one of only 130 photographs of Lincoln, it is an extraordinary find not only because of its proximity to Lincoln's death, but because it shows him in a natural stance.
"You could put yourself in the shoes of the people around [Lincoln] and see what it was like to live at the White House," said Morgan, who says he receives 10 to 20 requests a day asking him to verify potential Lincoln photographs.
Morgan, who purchased the photo from Grant, says he has received thousands of e-mails from Lincoln aficionados commenting on the find. His Web site, lincolnimages.com, received more than 5 million hits on Tuesday and crashed because of the traffic overload.
Aspiring English speakers in Japan have made U.S. President Barack Obama's book of speeches and accompanying CD a national best-seller.
In Aichi, central Japan, a Buddhist monk has reportedly been playing the president's speeches during his temple service, and dozens of students in an English-language class in Tokyo have been memorizing his 2004 Democratic Convention speech to improve their understanding and pronunciation.
"Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely," the students at Kaplan Japan school recited together Friday.
"The Speeches of Barack Obama" has sold 420,000 copies since its release on Nov. 20 - an "unprecedented huge hit" for an English-language text, according to publisher Asahi Press.
Any book that sells more than 100,000 copies in Japan, which has a population of 128 million, is considered a success, and foreign-language publication sales rarely exceed 20,000, the publisher said.
Obama's book of speeches surged to No. 2 in Japan's main best-seller list this week, according to Hiroki Tomatsu, an official of Japan's largest book distributor Tohan Co. that publishes the ranking.
The 95-page book compiles Obama's speeches including the one at the 2004 convention, many from the party primaries, and his victory speech after he beat Hillary Rodham Clinton to secure the Democratic nomination. Each English-language transcript comes with a Japanese translation.
Although the simplicity of campaign speeches makes them an obvious choice as a language-learning tool, other American presidents have rarely been so feted.
"We don't publish every single president's speeches," Asahi Press official Yuzo Yamamoto said. "Would you buy the text of former President George W. Bush's speeches?"
Obama retakes oath of office after Roberts' mistake
U.S. President Barack Obama retook his oath of office Wednesday after Chief Justice John Roberts messes up while delivering it at Tuesday's inauguration. Thanks to both Youtube, as well as CNN for the video.
This second oath -- also administered by Roberts -- took place at 7:35 p.m. Wednesday in the White House's Map Room. Roberts asked Obama whether he was ready.
"I am, and we're going to do it very slowly," President Obama replied.
The do-over was aimed at dispelling any confusion that might arise from Tuesday's take -- in which "faithfully" was said out of sequence -- and erase any question that Obama is legally the president. However, per the Constitution, Barack Obama became president at noon Tuesday without taking the oath.
"We believe that the oath of office was administered effectively and that the president was sworn in appropriately yesterday," White House counsel Greg Craig said Wednesday in a written statement.
"But the oath appears in the Constitution itself. And out of an abundance of caution, because there was one word out of sequence, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath a second time," the statement read.
On Tuesday, Chief Justice Roberts, apparently working without a copy of the oath handy on the Capitol steps, started out by reciting a six-word phrase, but Obama broke in halfway through and repeated the first three.
That seemed to throw the chief justice off stride, and he proceeded to mix up the order of the words in the next phrase.
The Constitution sets out the language that should be used in the oath: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Roberts moved the word "faithfully" back nine spots, and used "to" instead of "of." That threw the president off base, and he smiled and paused to collect his thoughts, then decided to follow Roberts' lead.
But the chief justice at the same time attempted to correct himself.
Here's how Tuesday's oath went:
Roberts: ... that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully ...
Obama: ... that I will execute ...
Roberts: ... the off -- faithfully the pres -- the office of president of the United States ...
Obama (at the same time): ... the office of president of the United States faithfully ...
The two got the rest correct, including the nonobligatory "So help you God?" "So help me God."
Reporters, bloggers and others everywhere, on and offline, weighed in on the flub. The New York Post offered this headline: "Roberts is the Oaf of Office."
A Washington Post reader complained in a letter to the editor: "What could have been a moment for the ages was marred by Mr. Roberts' thoughtlessness. News outlets will report that the first words of our new president were "confused." Whether through design or an amazing lack of preparation, Justice Roberts's behavior was a disgrace."
And Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said: "We're wondering here whether or not Barack Obama in fact is the president of the United States. They had a kind of garbled oath. It's just conceivable that this will end up going to the courts."
In a congressional luncheon after Tuesday's swearing-in, Roberts and Obama exchanged words, and the chief justice appeared to tell the president, "It was my fault."
Before Wednesday's second oath at the White House, Obama, waiting on a couch, joked that "we decided it was so much fun ... "
Though a Bible was used in Tuesday's oath, one was not used for Wednesday's.
After a flawless recitation, Roberts smiled and said, "Congratulations again."
"Thank you, sir," the president replied. After a smattering of applause, Obama quipped that "the bad news for the [press] pool is there's 12 more balls."
Roberts has made no public comment on becoming tongue-tied Tuesday.
I've found a video of today's inaugural address by U.S. President Barack Obama, Courtesy of Youtube Due to the length of the speech, to keep the file size down, it was split into 2 files, watch part 1, then part 2...
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