I say the fist bump.

“Yo, Akihito.”

That would send the message — The U.S. of A is in the house!

It’s part of the new American brand — knuckle to knuckle. A full Uncle Sam.

Which, of course, brings us to the bow, that very low bow in Tokyo.

You’ve probably seen pictures. President Obama is bent at darn near a right angle while greeting Japanese Emperor Akihito last week.

Somewhere, in bringing his head down and his hand out, Mr. Obama apparently passed an invisible line between showing respect and being a cowtowing wuss.

And some people have taken offense. They are the people who watch Mr. Obama like hunters in the blind. They look for the small opening, the telltale sign of mushy foreign overindulgence.

These Obama trackers have been at it for more months than he’s been in office. They want to bag the president. There’s just something about him that makes their teeth itch.

The bow in Japan was more than enough for a clear shot. There he was, closer to Fred Astaire than John Wayne. There he was, letting ancient tradition and local custom trump that straight-up American strut.

Some, coming from their refuge on the right, call it a disgrace. They say the president showed excessive deference. Maybe an inch or two less bend at the waist? It’s hard to say what the new standard body angle for American presidents on the road should be.

The Japanese say that the bow was not a disgrace. They say it was an appropriate show of respect. But they live in Japan.

I have to think there’s some nostalgia at work here in this resentment over the bow that put the top of the president’s head even with the emperor’s tie knot.

After all, Mr. Obama sometimes has that irritating knack of looking elegant and sounding really smart and being different than you and me. And it wasn’t that long ago that we had a president who could be really goofy and say funny stuff even if he didn’t intend to.

The guy who used to be president never sounded smart. He brought new words to presidential speaking. And he didn’t sit around talking to a bunch of people about whether to go to war either. He just went, ready or not, reason or not.

Some people clearly miss that. I hear from them occasionally. They’re loaded for Mr. Obama. They’re taking their shots at damn near anything. They don’t like all this talking Mr. Obama does, especially when he even suggests that the U.S. of A. has some explaining to do.

And another thing. Some people really get frosted that Mr. Obama is thinking and studying and talking before sending in the troops.

These people remember fondly when the guy who used to be president gave the German chancellor a surprise back rub and talked with the British prime minister with a mouth full of banquet chow.

All those zany hijinks made the former president seem like just a regular guy, the kind of guy who might greet an emperor with a fist bump.

So the bow, so warmly received in Japan, seems just one more reason for some people to think the president is forgetting where he came from. Just because a man goes to Japan doesn’t mean he stops being an American.

So let’s go with the fist bump, the new American signature. It says so much more about us than an elegant bow to tradition.

bkerr@projo.com