I lived in Japan, worked in Japan and speak Japanese. I also know the etiquette of bowing in Japan.  You can study it for months and not understand all the nuances of bowing, but any Japanese person looking at that picture is going to be embarrassed for Obama because he got it wrong.

When I first heard about the controversy, I thought, "oh, this is just another stupid Republican over-reaction (as usual)." However, when I saw the bow in the video I actually felt bad for Obama. The poor guy didn't get good advice on the etiquette.

It's all about the depth of the bow. Japanese measure rank by how deeply you bow. If you are meeting an equal you can both do a slight bow. Sometimes even a head nod is enough of a bow. The important thing is that equals both bow to the same depth.  

Now, if you're younger, or a woman, or somehow subservient to the other person you bow deeper than they do. So, the superior person will do a slight bow and the inferior person will do a deeper and lower bow.  In this case the Japanese Emperor is not even declining his head at all, and Obama is not paying any attention to that and doing this bow where he's completely bent in half.

This is the way a geisha girl would bow to her client. This is the way that the girls at the entry way of the Japanese Department stores bow to the customers entering the store saying "irashiamase!" This is the way that that the doorman of a hotel would bow to a CEO as he took his bags.  This bow sends the message to any Japanese person that 1) Obama knows nothing about Japanese culture 2) none of his aides took the time to tell him the basics of Japanese greetings and 3) that he just innocently tried to figure it out himself and do the right thing.  

Therefore, as an American I'm slightly embarrassed. Both for the ignorance of the President's cultural advisors and also that he does look pretty silly & submissive in the eyes of the Japanese.

Should the President have bowed at all? Yes! He just should have done a shallower one.  Dick Cheney is an ass if he thinks the President shouldn't have bowed at all.  When you're in Japan, it's totally appropriate to do their type of greeting which is bowing. Just like when the Japanese will also do a handshake when they're doing business with Americans. So, Dick Cheney is an ass to say "Americans should never bow" - that's just ethnocentric and wrongheaded. But of course we expect that from him.

That's my two cents. I'd be interested to hear a Japanese person's opinion on this issue since I'll admit I don't know much about the etiquette of bowing when in comes to the emperor.