President Obama’s sagging ratings are causing many people to wonder what is going on.

Mark Steyn of course is no fan of the President bowing to kings and emperors, and calls the President the Superbower:

Along with his choreographic gaucherie goes his peculiar belief that all of human history is just a bit of colorful backstory in the Barack Obama biopic — or as he put it in his video address on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall:

“Few would have foreseen on that day that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent.”

Tear down that wall . . . so they can get a better look at me!!! Is there no one in the White House grown-up enough to say, “Er, Mr. President, that’s really the kind of line you get someone else to say about you”?

And maybe somebody could have pointed out that Nov. 9, 1989, isn’t about him but about millions of nobodies whose names are unknown, who lead dreary lives doing unglamorous jobs and going home to drab accommodations, but who at a critical moment in history decided they were no longer going to live in a prison state. They’re no big deal; they’re never going to land a photoshoot for Vanity Fair. But it’s their day, not yours.

It’s not the narcissism, so much as the crassly parochial nature of it.

However, Spiegel Online too is getting worried:

Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama’s currency isn’t as strong as he had believed.

Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington’s new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.

Even the ruinous C-word is now appearing in unexpected places – to President Obama’s disadvantage:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: The word these days is optics, visuals, signals. In the Carter presidency, the optics were not exactly robust, and Ronald Reagan rode that to a big victory in 1980. Is the Obama White House sending some Carteresque signals these days?

All of which makes one ponder.

Why go on such a high-profile tour of Asia if some key and worthwhile substantive results are not already nailed down? That’s basic technique.

And have not the Obama team grasped the single vital point of diplomacy?

That it’s fine and dandy to extend the Sincere Hand of Friendship and be ready to negotiate even with enemies.

But what makes negotiating credible and effective as a policy tool is not what’s negotiable.

It’s what’s non-negotiable.

If your adversaries think that you are not prepared to make a tough stand on anything in particular, they have no reason to negotiate – better just to sit tight and gloat as the sandy base of your position erodes of its own accord while waves of events lap away at it.

And that’s how you can move from superpowering to superbowing … to supercowering?

Update:  Charmless reader Ivor:

I would have thought that, of all the disparate issues on which you feel qualified to pontificate, diplomatic protocol might be one area where you actually had something worthwhile to contribute.

As a former professional therefore, when visiting the monarch of one the most consistent and valuable allies which your country still possesses, do you observe the courtesies expected in his country or deliberately give offence so that this will indicate who is the greater head of state?

The basic principle here is that when a Head of State visits another, the pair of them are representing the values of their own country.

A low bow is appropriate when a subject of the Monarch/Emperor concerned is presented to indicate fealty/deference, but is not necessary or even appropriate when a senior foreign person not owing allegiance to that ruler is presented.

It is nonetheless interesting from a psychological point of view that even Presidents of great republics often seem to feel uneasy in the presence of royalty.- the transient nature of politics deferring to an apparent higher moral force of Tradition?

So I go along with this analysis, although there are of course bowing precedents involving President Nixon and other US leaders down the years.

The key point is to be consistent. The courteous and elegant formal nod which President Obama gave to HM The Queen strikes me as just right for all occasions, and would not give offence in Japan or anywhere else. If you bow low to one monarch, bow low to all of them.

Otherwise you can be presented as ridiculous.