How low will he go? Obama gives Japan's Emperor Akihito a wow bow

November 14, 2009 |  3:38 am

How low will the new American president go for the world's royalty?

This photo will get Democrat President Obama a lot of approving nods in Japan this weekend, especially among the older generation of Japanese who still pay attention to the royal family living in its downtown castle. Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference for a superior.
To some in the United States, however, an upright handshake might have looked better. Remember Michelle Obama casually patting Britain's Queen Elizabeth on the back during their Buckingham Palace visit? America's royalty tends to make movies and get bad reviews and lots of money as a sign of respect.
Obama could receive some frowns back home as he did for his not-quite-this-low-or-maybe-about-the-same-bow to the Saudi king not so long ago. (See photo here)
Akihito, who turns 76 next month, is the eldest son and fifth child of Emperor Showa, the name given to an emperor and his reign after his death.
Emperor Showa is better known abroad by the life name of Hirohito. He became emperor in 1925 and died in 1989, the longest historically-known rule of the nation's 125 emperors.
Hirohito presided over his nation's growth from an undeveloped agrarian economy into the expansionist military power and ally of Nazi Germany of the 1930's.
And, later, Japan became a global economic giant. Hirohito, along with Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who authorized the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, were much reviled abroad during World War II.
Historically, debate has simmered over how much of a political puppet Hirohito was to the country's military before and during the war.
Even after Democrat President Harry Truman ordered the two atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 1945, there were strong forces within Japan that wanted to continue to fight the Americans in the spirit of kamikaze suicide pilots.
But Akihito's father went on national radio, the first time his subjects had ever heard Hirohito's voice, and without using the inflammatory word "surrender," pronounced that the country must "accept the unacceptable." It did.
As the conquering Allied general and then presiding officer of the U.S. occupation, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, decided to allow Japan to keep its emperor as a ceremonial unifying institution within a nascent democracy.
Tojo, on the other hand, was hanged.
MacArthur treated Emperor Hirohito respectfully but, as his body language in this black and white postwar photo demonstrates, was not particularly deferential.
(But then MacArthur was not known as a particularly deferential person, as Truman discovered just before firing him later. But that's another war.)
Akihito was born during Japan's conquering of China and was evacuated during the devastating American fire-bombing of Tokyo, which was built largely of wood in those days.
The future emperor learned English during the U.S. occupation, but, inexplicably, his father ordered that his oldest boy not receive an Army commission as previous imperial heirs always had.
Akihito assumed the throne on Jan. 7, 1989. Within weeks he began a series of formal expressions of remorse to Asian countries for Japan's actions during his father's reign. In 2003, he underwent surgery for prostate surgery.

In 1959, Akihito married Michiko Shoda, the first commoner allowed to enter the Japanese royal family. That was two years before the birth of Akihito's future presidential guest, Barack Obama.
Joe Biden was already 17 by then. But he wasn't a senator.

-- Andrew Malcolm

An Ideologue Instead of a Statesman

Peter Wehner - 11.12.2009 - 8:00 AM
The results of races for the governorship of Virginia and New Jersey were ominous for Democrats. The most alarming development for them should be that independents voted for the GOP candidates by roughly a 2-to-1 margin. This was a sea change, and it took place in only a year.
There are several reasons Democrats are faltering at this juncture. But one explanation, I think, is more relevant than all others: President Obama is pushing a hugely expensive and ambitious domestic agenda the public simply does not want. Many Americans also believe that what Obama is doing is a diversion from the pressing issues confronting the country — a weak economy, the highest rates of unemployment and underemployment in more than a quarter century (the figure now stands at 17.5 percent), and an exploding deficit and debt.
Virtually every public-opinion poll shows considerable resistance to ObamaCare, the signature domestic program of the Obama presidency. Cap-and-trade is about as unpopular. In addition, public sentiment is turning hard against government spending, control, and activism, which are at the core of Obamaism.
Trust in government is down to 23 percent — the lowest in at least a dozen years. More than three quarters of the public believe that the federal government does the right thing either never or only some of the time. Large majorities believe the president and Congress should worry about the budget deficit above almost anything else. The percentage of Americans who believe that there is too much government regulation has risen sharply in a year (from 38 percent in 2008 to 45 percent this year); so has the number of people who say government is doing too many things better left to business (the number has increased from 40 percent to 48 percent). Not surprisingly, the overall approval of the job that Congress is doing is now at 24 percent. And Obama himself has seen a historic drop in his support during his first year in office.
There is more. According to the latest Gallup poll, Republicans have moved ahead of Democrats by 48 percent to 44 percent among registered voters in the generic congressional ballot for the 2010 House elections, with independents’ preference for the Republican candidate in their districts having grown to an astonishing 22-point lead over a Democratic candidate (52 percent to 30 percent).
And a new Pew poll finds that voters who plan to support Republicans next year are more enthusiastic than those who plan to vote for a Democrat. Fully 58 percent of those who plan to vote for a Republican next year say they are very enthusiastic about voting, compared with only 42 percent of those who plan to vote for a Democrat. And 56 percent of independent voters who support a Republican in their district are very enthusiastic about voting, as opposed to just 32 percent of independents who plan to vote for a Democrat expressing high levels of enthusiasm. Anti-incumbent sentiments are near all-time highs. More broadly, according to Pew,

The mood of America is glum. Two-thirds of the public is dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country. Fully nine-in-ten say that national economic conditions are only fair or poor, and nearly two-thirds describe their own finances that way — the most since the summer of 1992.

Democrats have convinced themselves that passing a historic health-care bill — which is still far from certain — will change all that. Their supposition is that while the legislative process may be unseemly, the final product will be popular. The mere act of passing health-care reform will be a huge political victory for the president and Democrats — and will redound to their benefit. Or so goes the theory. But it is, I think, a misguided one.
Jamming through an unpopular program of this size and scope without bipartisan support is a prescription for a public backlash. Moreover, the basic design of the program Democrats are advocating is deeply flawed — and bad policies make for bad politics. Yet even with public skepticism giving way to public opposition, with widespread concern transmuting into widespread anxiety and unhappiness, Obama continues to push ahead with his agenda. Why?
Because Mr. Obama came in to office determined to reshape American society in deep and lasting ways — and health care is the best vehicle through which that reshaping will occur. It doesn’t matter that this is something the public does not want; in his mind, and in the minds of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, it is something the public needs. Call it progressive paternalism.
The president and his team made a huge wager at the outset of Obama’s tenure. They would use the economic crisis they faced to push through a sweeping agenda (”You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” is how chief of staff Rahm Emanuel put it.) Instead of focusing on the major problems confronting the nation, they would leverage those problems to achieve other aims. And this will be seen in retrospect as a huge, perhaps historic, mistake on their part.
“The truth is, gentlemen, a statesman is the creature of his age, the child of circumstances, the creation of his times,” Disraeli said.

A statesman is essentially a practical character; and when he is called upon to take office, he is not to inquire what his opinion might or might not have been on this or that subject; he is only to ascertain the needful and the beneficial, and the most feasible measure to be carried out.

What we are finding is that Barack Obama is not a practical character; he is a dogmatist. He has avoided what’s needed and beneficial in order to promote a sweeping statist agenda. He is turning out to be an ideologue instead of a statesman.
The enormous goodwill the president had at the beginning of the year has evaporated. The public still rather likes him — but they don’t much like what he is doing to them and to their country. There will be a high price for him to pay for carrying through on his liberal ambitions. But it is his party — the instrument of his ambitions — that will suffer the consequences first.

White House allies say Obama bungled Guantanamo closing

By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison by Jan. 22 was followed by a series of mistakes and missteps by his administration that will delay the prison's closure for months, according to a report from a policy organization with close ties to the White House.
Those mistakes — which ranged from initially having too few people on board to handle the workload to misreading Congress — have put the timetable months behind schedule and will push the prison's closure well beyond the January deadline, which Obama announced with great fanfare two days after he took office.
The White House declined to comment on the report.
The administration is expected to announce within days the results of its review of legal cases against the remaining detainees at Guantanamo, a review that originally was scheduled to be finished in July. Among its conclusions, the administration is expected to say whether it will prosecute the accused 9/11 mastermind and four alleged co-conspirators in a federal civilian court.
"We hope we'll see the announcement very soon on the 9/11 case, that they're going to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed and the other conspirators in federal court," said Ken Gude, a scholar at the Center for American Progress and the author of its new report on Guantanamo. The liberal policy organization enjoys close relations with the Obama administration, which has hired several of its scholars for senior positions.
In his study, Gude said the White House made mistakes in implementing the high-profile Guantanamo policy from the very beginning.
"It was always going to be difficult, but some unforeseen obstacles were thrown in its path, and the new administration made some mistakes that have cost time and sucked energy away from the core mission of closing the prison," he said in the report.
Two task forces — one set up to study the case files of the more than 200 detainees still held at the prison and the other charged with examining the overall detention policy — fell behind almost from the start.
A key problem was that the Obama administration was hours old and didn't have enough people to follow through quickly after Obama announced the closing plan. Those who were there couldn't find needed files quickly.
"The task forces struggled right out of the gate," Gude said in the report.
Then, he said, they made a critical mistake by not moving quickly to move some detainees out of Guantanamo. For example, he said, the administration should've worked with the Virginia congressional delegation to smooth the way politically to release a group of Uighurs to Northern Virginia, where there's a community of the Chinese Muslims.
"They could have put that together in six to eight weeks," Gude said in an interview. "It would have taken some of the sting out of the criticism of bringing them into the United States."
With little groundwork done to move some Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. or elsewhere, the Obama administration made what Gude called its "biggest mistake" in April by asking Congress for $80 million to finance the prison closing.
"Asking Congress for money for Guantanamo opened the door for conservatives on Capitol Hill, and the Obama administration was caught completely off guard when they began aggressively pushing back against the funding," Gude said in his report.
Gude called the backlash "ridiculous" because it was based on the implied argument that the country's maximum security prisons couldn't hold terrorists transferred from Guantanamo and that the closing of Guantanamo thus would endanger Americans.
Nonetheless, Gude said, "The White House failed to support its allies in Congress that were willing to push back against the fear mongering. The lack of early backing from the administration sealed the defeat. The result was a blowout, with Congress overwhelmingly voting to bar the release of any Guantanamo detainees into the United States and placing severe restrictions on any other kinds of transfers."
That also made it harder for the U.S. to convince other countries to take some of the detainees, either for release or detention.
"Many American allies are willing to help the United States and accept detainees, but quite reasonably expected the United States to share in the responsibility," Gude wrote. "It is a hard sell for America's allies to tell their citizens that they are accepting Guantanamo detainees even though the U.S. Congress feels that they are too dangerous for release in America."
Gude thinks the prison will be closed, and noted that 16 countries now have accepted or pledged to accept some of the detainees there.
However, he and the Center for American Progress, which is headed by former Obama transition chief John Podesta, urged several steps to get the closing on track. They include:
_ Setting a new deadline of July, rather than simply letting the January deadline slip.
_ Prosecuting the alleged 9/11 conspirators in federal court and limiting military commissions to what they called battlefield crimes.
_ Limiting military detention to those captured in combat zones and using criminal law to try those captured "far away" from any battlefield.
_ Sending those convicted in federal courts to maximum security prisons in the U.S., and sending those remaining in military custody to the prison at Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

Anita Dunn: Going, Going, Gone

By Emmett Tyrrell

WASHINGTON -- Well, that did not take long! Just weeks after initiating a war of words with Fox News and being exposed as an admirer of Chairman Mao, Anita Dunn, the White House Communications Director, is stepping down. I intimated as much a couple of weeks back, when I lumped her in with two other Obama Administration zanies who were forced to resign: environmental czar Van Jones and National Endowment for the Arts spokesman Yosi Sergant.
My point was that recent Democratic administrations always welcome to Washington a fleet of eccentrics that are not to be believed. Both the Carter and the Clinton administrations were abundant with such characters, a woman who talked to monuments late at night, a surgeon general who propounded the salubrious benefits of masturbation publicly -- by which I mean speaking of it in public, not actually performing in public. Those are just two of the many bizarre figures that come to mind. Now we have the Obama Administration, and I have prophesied that its zanies will outnumber those from both previous menageries combined.

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The question for the moment is which indiscretion weighed most heavily against Dunn's tenure, the war with Fox or the praise of Mao? During her assaults on Fox she denounced the cable-news network as "a wing of the Republican Party," and "opinion journalism masquerading as news." In an extended shriek she said last month, "The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party." Is that sulfur I smell?
Actually, I doubt it was her war on Fox that caused the White House Communications Director to bail. After all she is not the only White House operative to assail Fox. There have been others. Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has claimed that Fox is not a "legitimate news organization." White House senior advisor David Axelrod has said that Fox is "not really a news organization." The President himself has gotten in on the act.
My guess is that Dunn's expressed admiration for Mao is the cause of her departure. For this revelation I suppose we have to thank Fox's Glenn Beck. He aired a tape of Dunn notifying an audience of students at St. Andrew's Episcopal School near Washington that this cuddly little butterball of a tyrant -- who oversaw the murder of some 70 million people -- is one of her "favorite philosophers." The other one, she said, is Mother Teresa, who killed no one so far as we know. Dunn adduced both as moral exemplars for the assembled youths. Her point was something about setting out to do things you really want to do regardless of criticism. If I followed her, she saw both Mao and Mother Teresa as variations on the old Sinatra standard "My Way." In moral and practical terms, Dunn's advice to the students was confused.
What is more she stretched the truth when asked to defend her speech. On CNN she attempted to explain that when she spoke of Mao as one of her "favorite political philosophers" she was speaking ironically. The phrase was, she claimed, "intended as irony, but clearly the effort fell flat -- at least with a certain Fox commentator whose sense of irony may be missing." Ah, Dunn's war with Fox continues.
Yet by now many have viewed the tape that Beck aired and I doubt they perceived any irony. Was she being ironic about Mother Teresa too -- if so, why? To be blunt, Dunn's explanation is a lie. She is one of those ritualistic liberals who specialize in putting people on, in disturbing the peace. Disturbing the peace is a timeless liberal value, but sometimes the liberal misdemeanant goes too far. You cannot have a White House Communications Director advocating Mao as a role model for America's youth. Thus she is going, going, gone. I cannot wait for the next White House zany.

Chinese greet 'Oba Mao' with flaming statue, fakes

BEIJING (AP) - The Chinese have learned English from his speeches and celebrated the way he rolls up his sleeves. Now President Barack Obama is finally coming, and he's being greeted with "Oba Mao" T-shirts and a statue of him that bursts into flames. Sunday's arrival of a U.S. president admired for his charisma is already a source of profit and brief fame for some Chinese.
Strangest is the burning Obama, tucked away in a Beijing warehouse. Artist Liu Bolin hopes Obama can take time from his visit to drop by.

"He's so hot right now, so I wanted to translate that through my work," said Liu, who was inspired by the idea of the first black U.S. president.
The bronze Obama bust is modeled on Time magazine's "Man of the Year" cover and is speckled with holes for gas that ignites every couple of minutes.
It's a positive work, Liu said.
"Yes, setting something on fire can have negative connotations, but this piece represents energy and life that Obama has given to the world," said the 38-year-old, who made a similar piece for former revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.
"We're eager to see what he can do for China and U.S. relations."
One Beijing shop owner wanted to see what Obama could do for sales. Liu Mingjie created "Oba Mao" T-shirts, with the president wearing the uniform of the Red Guards, who caused chaos during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.
"It's just kind of avant garde," Liu said of the images, saying they were no longer political, just fashion.
He sold hundreds of the shirts, to both foreigners and Chinese, until authorities told shops selling the shirts to stop.
"They're not allowed to sell these things because there are images of Obama wearing the uniform of the Red Army," a woman answering the phone at the Dongcheng district Administration for Commerce and Industry said Thursday.
Other inspired salesmen have used Obama for product "endorsements." One was for a knockoff handheld called the BlockBerry. Although the photo of the president showed his American flag lapel pin on backward.
Obama will have no trouble being recognized in China. He's been the top-ranked foreigner in searches on Baidu, China's leading search engine—No. 22 as of Thursday morning.
But it will take more than making United States history and winning a Nobel Peace Prize to make him a superstar.
"He's special for the Americans, but definitely not for the Chinese," said Shen Dingli, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. "On the contrary, we are always influenced by the tone of government-monitored media."
That media, so far, has not played up Obama's visit with the breathlessness of U.S. media—or of Chinese media whenever President Hu Jintao leaves the country.
"He's coming?" asked one clerk at a state-run Xinhua Bookstore, which displayed biographies of Obama and his wife, Michelle, as well as collections of his speeches.
At newsstands in the past week, Obama could be found on the cover of just one magazine: Men's Health.
At Beijing's epicenter of kitsch, the Silk Street market, shop girls giggled at requests for Obama products.
"Obama! She wants Obama!"
"I'm Chinese, I only pay attention to Chinese."
"I don't know him."
"No one have," a young man in a T-shirt stall said in English, before switching to Chinese. "Mao sells better."
___
Associated Press writer Chi-Chi Zhang and researchers Xi Yue and Yu Bing in Beijing and Ji Chen in Shanghai contributed to this report.

White House Counsel Craig to Step Down

Greg Craig, the top lawyer at the White House, is expected to announce plans to step down from his post following efforts on several policies that have become liabilities for President Obama.

White House Counsel Greg Craig, center, is seen with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, left, and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs at a White House briefing in May. (AFP)

White House Counsel Greg Craig is expected to announce as early as Friday that he plans to step down from his post following a rocky tenure, people familiar with the matter said.
Craig, the top lawyer at the White House and a close aide to President Barack Obama, has helped lead the administration's efforts on several national-security policies that initially enjoyed popular support but have since become liabilities for Obama.
These include the planned closure of the prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the release of Bush administration-era national-security documents.
Craig's departure has been widely expected since the summer. He came under criticism from inside the administration and in Congress for a perceived failure to manage the political issues that have originated from Obama's decision to close Guantanamo, according to officials in the administration and in Congress.
When Craig's resignation becomes official, he will be the highest-ranking official to leave the Obama administration.
Robert "Bob" Bauer, a prominent Washington attorney who worked with the Obama campaign, is expected to be named his successor, Democratic sources told Fox News late Thursday.
Fox News first reported in October that Bauer was the leading candidate for White House Counsel to replace Craig. At that time, no other candidates were mentioned by the White House or Democratic sources.
Bauer is married to Anita Dunn, interim White House Communications Director. Dunn relinquished her post this week and will leave the White House at month's end.
It is not known when Bauer will start, but it is expected to be in December.
Craig's expected departure comes as the administration prepares for a milestone on the issue of closing Guantanamo. The Justice Department is expected to announce by Monday plans for trying up to a dozen detainees held at the prison, the first set of decisions on how to deal with the more than 200 prisoners remaining at the facility.
The White House refused to confirm or deny Bauer's expected appointment.
Fox News' Major Garrett and The Wall Street Journal contributed to this report.

NEWLY REVEALED DOCUMENTS Contradict NEA Chairman Landesman

“The former NEA Director of Communications acted unilaterally and without the approval or authorization of then-Acting Chairman Patrice Walker Powell.” – Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, on September 22, 2009

Chairman Landesman’s claim that Yosi Sergant, the former NEA Communications Director, acted “unilaterally” on the controversial August 10th conference call is not only beginning to erode, but new documents obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act show that another federal employee thought the arts effort was entering murky legal waters.

–

In an email dated July 30, 2009, Nellie Abernathy, a representative of the federal program United We Serve, sent an email to Sergant to inquire of his interest in attending a meeting regarding 9/11 events – the culmination day of the United We Serve campaign. In the email Abernathy states (emphasis added):

“Just got off the phone with [redacted]. They’re interested in helping produce some 9/11 events and will be in DC next week. Any chance you could join us for a meeting Tuesday morning? Or does this fall into that sketchy grey we might get arrested area?”

Sergant responded, “I’d love to.”

The subject of the email correspondence was entitled “rock the vote,” which presumably should have been redacted (blacked out) in the subject line given that the organization is a non-government group and the other subject lines in the email chain were redacted.

Readers following this story may recall that Rock the Vote was a presenter on the controversial August 10th conference call that encouraged an arts group that worked on Obama’s election campaign to create art on issues that were being vehemently debated nationally; including health care, energy, and the environment. As a presenter Bates stated the following, “We just wanted to give you one quick tangible example of things that can be done.” Bates then went on to explain how Rock the Vote was considering having an artist create an art installation from urban waste to engage young people “on the issue of a new environmental movement.”

Rock the Vote is a non-profit voter registration organization that is frequently involved in partisan political activity – a conflict that Abernathy appears to address in her email correspondence with Sergant. Eleven days after the August 10th conference call, Rock the Vote announced a health care design competition. The contest announcement read:

“We can’t stand by and listen to lies and deceit coming from those who are against reforming a broken system…We need designs that tell the country YES WE CARE! Young people demand health care now.”

The new FOIA documents also show that additional federal employees were aware of this arts effort, including another NEA employee by the name of Elizabeth Stark. Email correspondence between Abernathy, Sergant, and Stark show that a United We Serve meeting was arranged by Stark for Sergant.

Philip Martin, an outreach coordinator for United We Serve, also appears in the FOIA documents, showing that he was aware of Sergant’s efforts and was working with him on another arts outreach program in Philadelphia. The federal employees that were aware of this arts effort continue to grow and now include Yosi Sergant (NEA), Elizabeth Stark (NEA), Nellie Abernathy (United We Serve), Philip Martin (United We Serve), Buffy Wicks (White House Office of Public Engagement), and Kalpen Modi (White House Office of Public Engagement).

Chairman Landesman’s claim that Sergant acted “unilaterally” is becoming harder to swallow.