Awkward Handshake with North Korean General Turns Into “Salute-gate” for President Trump
I have to admit I cringed a little bit when I first saw this, but the follow on criticism has been over the top:
Newly released video footage from North Korean state media shows President Donald Trump returning a salute to a North Korean military general during this week’s summit in Singapore, an extraordinary display of respect from a US president to a top officer of a hostile regime.In the military, returning a salute from a military officer of a friendly foreign nation is common practice for US military officers and considered a display of military professionalism. There is no rule that a US president is obliged to return a salute, which is considered a sign of mutual respect.After Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walked down a colonnade to shake hands, the pair entered into a room filled with various members of Kim’s delegation, the video from North Korean broadcaster KCTV news shows.Trump starts to shake hands with those in the room. Upon encountering North Korean Gen. No Kwang Chol, who was in full uniform, Trump first extends his hand, to which the general responds with a salute. Trump then salutes back, extends his hand again and the two men shake hands. [CNN]
You can read more at the link, but the salute as expected has become red meat for the usual Trump critics to sensationalize. The over the top criticism of what appeared to a reflexive action by the President is about as stupid as the over top criticism of former President Obama bowing to the Saudi King. With that said if Obama had done this his critics would be doing the same thing that Trump critics are doing now.
From what I have read there really isn’t any regulation stating that a President is supposed to salute military personnel much less foreign military personnel. Saluting apparently started with President Reagan and follow on Presidents have continued this tradition.
There’s no regulation that stipulates presidents must salute the troops. In fact, for the first 192 years of our republic, it didn’t happen. None of the first 38 commanders in chief did it. And some of those dudes had some serious military experience. Eisenhower? Grant? I mean, Teddy Roosevelt was a war hero. Surely he felt compelled to click his heels together and cut a perfect knife-handed salute when he passed a uniform service member, right? Wrong. It was literally something that Ronald Reagan made up one day. [Task and Purpose]
Interestingly I did find buried at the very end of a Dallas Morning News article criticizing Trump’s salute, that President Obama did occasionally salute foreign military personnel as well:
A cursory check of photo archives shows that Obama on occasion returned a foreign official’s salute. [Dallas Morning News]
The White House for its part is defending the salute as being part of “common courtesy“. Well the so call common courtesy is sure to be immortalized with endless amount of Internet memes highlighting this salute.
The general saluted first and it would’ve been a little awkward not to return the salute (just from the video).
Trump obviously doesn’t seem to avoid the awkward IF it would benefit us, but in this case (a negotiation) I don’t see any benefit. So I think it was appropriate in this context.
So a Korean general saluted to demonstrate respect and his inferior position to the American president…
…and Trump returned the salute to acknowledge and reinforce that idea.
Is there something to see here?
CH, CNN would jump all over Trump if he single-handedly got all the bad guys in the world to apologize, confess, make restitution, and start going to Sunday School…
This was a miscommunication between two older gentlemen, one of which probably never had the opportunity to meet a foreign dignitary like President Trump, the other was a surprise move by an unfamiliar individual which temporarily caught Trump off guard. As CH said, “Is there something to see here?”
@Tagum City Tim, for rational people like yourself there is nothing to see here, but when I saw it I cringed because I knew we would never hear the end of this from the usual suspects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU8Fv4W-RII
Good video, Liz.