For the second time, Barack Obama has embarrassed this country by bowing to a foreign ruler. This time he bowed to the Emperor of Japan. Here is the link to the YouTube video that shows Barack Obama bowing to the Emperor of Japan, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0mZfpOfQYc. You decide for yourself if he bowed or not.

According to Japanese protocol, a bow like the one Barack Obama performed is done when one is trying to make amends for some wrong he/she committed. A normal bow to a head of state in Japan is a bow of about 45 degrees. This bow is of the 90 degree variety. It is similar to that bow/non-bow to the Saudi King.

Like I said at the time of the Saudi bow, American Presidents do not bow to anyone. Since George Washington was elected President there have been only two instances of American Presidents bowing to a foreign head of state. Both have come during the Presidency of Barack Obama. Something is really fishy when an American President bows to anyone. In this video, he even continues to give head bows to both the Emperor and his wife. This was almost too unseemly to watch. I thought Barack Obama had more respect for himself than that.

The announcer on the YouTube video said something interesting. He mentioned that the bow might be a result of Obama’s being raised in Indonesia all those years. I do not know the validity of that statement, but it does cause one to wonder what sort of training he received in Indonesia that is coming forward today.

What Barack Obama needs is a protocol guide to help him understand what he is supposed to do in these high level meetings. He is not Barack Obama private citizen. He is President of the United States. He needs to act like the President of the United States at all times when in foreign countries. If he wants to let his hair down in the United States, that is acceptable as we understand. Foreigners do not understand a President that is not acting as the President. That is too fine a line for a foreigner to draw. Americans know the difference instinctively. At least, I think that most Americans know the difference. If Obama knew the difference, he would not act like he is in foreign countries and with foreign leaders. That is why he needs someone to fill him in on what to do at all situations.

Right now, we have an embarrassment as President. He acts like he has never seen other Presidents when they have been in foreign countries. He acts like he has to make things up as he goes along. It does not matter that there are over 200 years of diplomatic protocol to guide him in these situations. He just goes in and acts like he thinks he is supposed to act as a citizen of the world. Most Americans do not buy into that citizen of the world nonsense. We are Americans and expect our President to act in a certain way. When our President does not act like we expect him to act, we are embarrassed as a nation.

When Bill Clinton was President, the New York Times got on his case for basically thinking about bowing to the Emperor of Japan. I shall wait with baited breath for the New York Times to excoriate Barack Obama for actually bowing to the Emperor. Obama did more than just bow; he bowed in subjugation to the Emperor according to Japanese custom. Our Rube in the White House probably does not even know what he did. Oh, well we have until 2012 until we can vote him out of office. Let’s hope there is an America there that can still vote in 2012. The way this bunch is going, I am not so sure that we may not recognize ourselves in 2012. That is a scary thought.

Since Governor Sanford reappeared, the talk shows have had almost non-stop talk about the situation. The facts are rather simple. The Governor was attracted to a woman, not his wife. This went on for a while in relative privacy. Then, he decided to visit her in Argentina. When he made the visit, he did not confide in anyone on where he was going. That is why the false story about the hiking trip was given out. After learning that he was discovered, Governor Sanford admitted to the affair and resigned from the leadership post with the Republican Governor’s Association.

The story is a familiar one. A man in a powerful position finds himself attracted to women. Even though he is married, he decides that nobody will find out about an affair with “this woman”. So, the powerful man breaks his marriage vows and has the affair with the exciting woman that he has found. Of course, he is found out. Some, at this point, try to lie their way out like Bill Clinton. Others, like Mark Sanford, own up to the error and admit the affair. The one thing that almost all of them do not do is give up the power that they currently hold. It is extremely rare for a person in power to give that up over an affair with a woman. They may give up leadership positions, but not the position of power that they currently hold. If the person is a Democrat, things are forgotten and go back to normal. If the person is a Republican, he is hounded all the way through the election to guarantee that he loses and a Democrat can pick up the seat.  This situation is following in the typical pattern. It is still early, so we do not know how it will finally play out.

Mark Sanford was talked about as Presidential material. That talk is now over. This affair will ruin his career potential. He has reached the maximum level that he will ever reach in politics. He could have gone much higher. He was saying and doing all the right things to enable him to be nominated for President or Vice-President.

Mike Gallagher asked a question on his radio program this morning that was intriguing. The question is whether we can have living heroes. Mike Gallagher had put Mark Sanford in the hero category because of his track record on the issues. Now that Mark Sanford has shown that he has feet of sand, he has proven that he is not a hero. Many of us do the same thing with other politicians or public figures. The problem is that all of these “heroes” are human. Humans, by definition, make mistakes. If we accept the fact that humans make mistakes, then we also should accept that our “heroes” will make mistakes. We just have to hope that the mistakes we are talking about are a little smaller than this one by Mark Sanford. For example: I put John Wayne in the hero category. I know that he smoked, but he still qualifies as a hero because of a great many other qualities. The same would work for almost all people that would qualify as heroes. The only unblemished heroes would be fictional or Jesus Christ. All others are fallible human beings.

The Democrats will make hay out of this admission by Mark Sanford and the other recent one by John Ensign. They will claim that Republicans are hypocrites. We preach about family values, then go off and have affairs. These affairs actually prove the message, not disprove the message. The fact that they are unusual proves that Republicans are generally supportive of family values proves the point. That a few fall off the wagon is not a rejection of family values, it is just an acknowledgement that humans are not perfect. On the other hand, nobody bats an eyelash when a Democrat is unfaithful. That is because Democrats do not uphold family values and so are not expected to live them. I would rather live family values and have some fall off the wagon than not live family values at all. Of course, that is the Christian in me talking.

Barack Obama picked Eric Holder to be the Attorney General. On the surface that seems to be ok as nobody has really heard of Eric Holder. BUT, Eric Holder was one of the people primarily responsible for the pardon of Marc Rich.

Marc Rich was a person who was involved in securities fraud. Before he could be caught, he fled to Europe. He spent about 10 years living in Europe living off the proceeds of the fraud. His wife lives in New York and travelled to Europe occasionally to see him.

Near the end of Bill Clinton’s term of office they cooked up a scheme to get a pardon for Marc Rich. The scheme was that Bill Clinton would pardon Marc Rich and his wife would give a generous seven figure donation to the Bill Clinton Library. Eric Holder was working in the Clinton administration and handled everything from the Clinton’s end.

Now Barack Obama wants to appoint Eric Holder as Attorney General. When he has been questioned about the Marc Rich affair, he either says that he cannot remember or that he made mistakes. He also adds that he learned from the mistakes he made during the Marc Rich pardon. Well, isn’t that great. He helps commit a fraud and then admits that he learned from the mistakes he made during the pardon.

Eric Holder is not qualified to be Attorney General. Any person who helps another commit an act that could be considered a crime is not qualified to be anyone’s attorney and especially not the top attorney in the country. No matter how Eric Holder hems and haws; he was still part of committing an act that should be considered a felony. I am not an attorney, but I am under the impression that it is a felony to take a seven figure bribe to get someone off the hook in a criminal investigation. I do not mean getting them off the hook by proving their innocence. I mean getting them off the hook by going to a higher source and having that higher source declares the person not guilty over the heads of the prosecutors. That is what Bill Clinton did and Eric Holder helped him do just that. For that act, Eric Holder is not qualified to even be an attorney. But, because he is a Democrat, there were no charges brought against him. Had he been a Republican, he would be in some prison next to the Republican that he was helping. Since they were Democrats, everyone just laughs and says that it is just fine. It is not just fine, it is corruption and we do not need corruption in government.

There is a double standard when it comes to wrong doing in government. If a Democrat commits an act that is a crime, everyone ignores the event. The Democrat seems to even get bonus points for being caught in the act. Look at Rep. Murtha; he was caught taking bribes about 20 years ago. Instead of being thrown out on the street, the Democrats gave him leadership positions. Or, look at Senator Byrd, he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and even rose to power in the KKK. The Democrats should have thrown him out, but instead they gave him leadership positions. Even blacks look at Senator Byrd and think he is a great guy when he still refers to them in terms that are not printable. If a Republican did any of those acts, the Republican would either be out on the street or in jail. Look at what happened to Senator Lott, he said something nice about an old man who was retiring. The old man had racist ideas 40 years ago, but had changed his spots. He was almost run out of the Senate for being nice.

We do not need to continue the corruption in the Democrat party. We need to weed it out whenever we find it. I know that Barack Obama is almost an untouchable right now and he should get whoever he wants to help him. But, if the person Obama wants is corrupt, the person should be rejected and Obama should make another choice. That may make me or others unpopular right now, but people who are corrupt have no business in my country’s government. I do not care how popular the person who selected them is, if the person he selected is corrupt that person should be rejected ASAP.