AlchemyToday

Fooling with NextGEN Gallery.

In the last few months I’ve had a number of brief, private exchanges with various conservatives who are regularly pilloried from the left for, variously, intellectual dishonesty, boorishness in the face of contradictory evidence, undue hysteria, and backwards morality.  I might’ve even thought those things or cast judgement based on where someone works.  Even though I always led with criticism, these have all been really honest, brief conversations.  As much or moreso as recent conversations with people on the left, frankly.  I’m not optimistic that this will continue once elections ramp up again (although my one run-in with amateur internet detectives wound up alright), but for the moment it’s quite nice.

Over at the Corner, K-Lo takes note – Obama’s Bow is Carter’s Kiss – approving of this bit of criticism at Power Line:

What’s wrong with this picture? Americans do not bow to royalty. In my view, when the royal is the ruling tyrant of a despotic regime, the wrong is compounded. Putting aside the breach of American protocol, it is akin to Jimmy Carter succumbing to Brezhnev’s infamous kiss at the signing of the arms accord in Vienna in 1979. It is a disgrace. As in Carter’s case, Obama’s supplicant attitude signifies his spirit. In this respect I distinguish it from George Bush’s otherwise embarrasing handholding with the the king.

Image removed — check link below; here’s a video of Bush bowing to Abdullah as he’s given a medal and then kissing him (not as a greeting but as part of the medal ceremony apparently).  This is silly.

Saudi King Abdullah, right, presents President Bush, left, with the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit following their dinner at Riyadh Palace, Monday, Jan. 14, 2008, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The entire day was commemorated in pictures over at Free Republic.