http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ESY__Ldhw

 I wasn’t going to write anything about this silly controversy, but now I can’t resist.

 On his recent trip to Asia, President Obama politely bowed (above) to the emperor of Japan — a gesture that immediately rendered American right-wingers downright apoplectic.

 The wingnut blogosphere went ballistic over the shame of it all. The rabble-rousers on Fox News showed photos and video of the disgraceful gesture over and over and over again. They were all quite sure that this would be the last straw. This would finally seal Obama’s reputation among patriotic Americans as a groveling toady on the international stage.

 Yes, the delight (masked by mock shame) among the loonies was palpable. Fox News quickly commissioned a poll to measure the domestic political damage incurred by Obama from such self-humiliation.

 But, wonder of wonders! The poll SHOWS that 67 percent of Americans consider it entirely appropriate for their president ”to bow to a foreign leader if that is the country’s custom,” and only 26 percent feel that it’s ”never appropriate for the president to bow to another leader.”

 So, I guess we won’t be hearing much more about this matter from our wingnut friends. Oh well, they can always fall back on their birtherism theories.

 For your edification, here’s a gallery of photos of various Republican presidents offering courteous gestures to dignitaries from abroad:

 AFTERTHOUGHT: This episode reminds me of the one last spring when right-wingers expressed great outrage over Obama having smiled when he shook hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

 The controversy prompted me to post this gallery of photos of various Republican presidents smiling with communist leaders:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXsoDx9s0j0

 Eric Zorn NAILS IT.

 An excerpt:

 A veritable caravan of terrorist sympathizers trooping across the heartland to visit their al-Qaida brethren imprisoned near the small Illinois town of Thomson!

 Jihadist guerrillas, attempting to spring their buddies with a raid on the remote supermax prison, deciding, while they’re in the neighborhood, to attack a nuclear power plant 22 miles away and bomb skyscrapers in Chicago 150 miles away!

 Followers of Osama bin Laden recruiting American prisoners to their evil cause!

 Radical Islamists attacking local jurors and prosecutors involved in the effort to bring their soldiers to justice!

 Key leaders acquitted and taking up residence in our towns!

 [Mark] Kirk, the North Shore Republican congressman now seeking his party’s nomination for U.S. Senate, has been peddling such hysteria since the news broke last week that the Obama administration hopes to transfer some detainees now held at Guantanamo to the now largely unused Thomson Correctional Center.

 The billboard above is a replacement for this show of paranoia:

 Nicholas Kristof REMINDS US that the arguments advanced by congressional Republicans in opposition to health-care reform are echoes of the rhetoric their political forebears used against Medicare in the 1960s.

 Which raises the question: Why don’t today’s Republicans try to repeal Medicare (as the teabaggers in the photo above demand)? The answer, of course, has to do with political cowardice, as I suggested in THIS POST of four months ago.

 With no evidence to support his charge, radio blabber Rush Limbaugh says the Gallup polling organization is cooking its numbers to keep President Obama’s approval ratings above 50 percent.

 Gallup’s Frank Newport (above) SAYS that’s bunk.

 Indeed, three of six recent polls, each conducted by an independent firm, have Obama’s rating higher than Gallup has it, as we see HERE. Notice, too, that each of those three polls measures opinions of American adults in general, while the others cover only registered voters or so-called likely voters.

 UPDATE: A Gallup Daily Tracking Poll released today SHOWS Obama’s approval rating slipping below 5o percent for the first time.

 Have you heard that ACORN stole more than 9.5 million votes in last year’s presidential election?

 A crazy notion, right? Well, a new poll SHOWS that most Republicans actually believe that nonsense — further evidence that the GOP is in deep, deep trouble.

 These people are completely bonkers.

 In a battle of Washington Post columnists, Ruth Marcus THRASHES Michael Gerson — but good!

 Gerson, if you don’t know, is a sanctimonious evangelical who used to write speeches for George W. Bush, in which role he infamously took credit for the work of his colleagues.