And it is good to see it being posted everywere. Sometimes this kind of stuff is powerful enough to create a shift in some peoples percetion.

San Francisco Chronicle: Cowboy george Bush's unexpected squeeze of the German chancellor has the Internet howling (July 19, 2006)

GOP commentator and Fox News political analyst Karen Hanretty said the outraged reaction shows how "President Bush just can't win."

"Aren't these the same women who have been angry about cowboy diplomacy?" she asked. "Do they want a kinder, more sensitive Bush -- or a cowboy? Once again, there's no pleasing women," she said. "Give them the cowboy and they want Alan Alda.''

Hanretty went on to say that "these women who would criticize the prez for making a friendly gesture are the same women who refused to say anything about Bill Clinton when he was accused of sexually harassing Paula Jones. Where were they when Katherine Willey was grieving for her dead husband and Bill Clinton was rubbing them in all the wrong places?''

Hoover Institution research fellow Bill Whalen, a former adviser to former Gov. Pete Wilson, says the generous coverage of Bush's backrub and his open mike comments fully illustrates the power -- and occasional "goofiness" of the Internet in its ability to turn quotes and images into major events for what he calls the "get-a-life contingent.''

"We have this perception that presidents are like Quakers or Amish; they don't say any dirty words,'' he said. "But occasionally an s-bomb will slip in there."

As for that neck rub, Whalen quipped: "There are those who say the President should be more Clintonesque ... maybe he misunderstood what they meant."

Maybe this is what needed to happen for Germany to get tougher on the US diplomatically. I wonder whether Merkel will reflect on this incident as  ametaphor of US-Germany relations.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

Of course the smallest things can start wars. But did Stalin and Churchill like each other when they negotiated, or how about Hitler and Mussolini - or Hitler and Chamberlain.

When those contract negotiations are being discussed it seems to me the personal level of "friendship" is never an issue : The had a chat over a beer, they exchanged sweaters, hand picked .

The first case where I can remember the personal is being discussed i between Charles de Gaulle and Adenauer, then Kohl very extensively, with his "Maennerfreundschaften" to Gorbatschow.

How much of that is real? Is that only an aspect of politicians meeting more often and the connected ability to form "relationships? or is there a greater change in culture?

From Hu's state visit in April

The world's northernmost desert wind.

"W is for WTF!"

I can understand how it would be odd to people who aren't from this region.  And, again, that's all I was able to see on the video and in the pictures.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

I think there has been a historic tendency for US Presidents to think that the personal characteristics that made them effective in domestic politics (things like charm, charisma, ability to persuade - the sort of characteristics most Presidents have at least to some extent) could be carried over into international negotiations. I think they have sometimes found stern faced foreign diplomats and leaders a bit of a challenge.

Tony Blair is also an example of someone who has found his personal characteristics were not enough to be a successful diplomat. His failure to make President Chirac move on farm subsidies (totally predictable to anyone who understood Chirac's political history and domestic priorities) demonstrates the limits of Blairplomacy.

Besides, how do you how well they "know" each other? By this time in their relationship, certain other recent Presidents would have made it to third base at least...

It's an over-familiarity that impinges on the personal space of the receiver. And it either confirms or attempts to establish personal power -- especially as it's done very publicly, and therefore the receiver's freedom to reject the move is limited. Merkel went as far as she could to show her displeasure without creating an incident.

See here where in March Berlusconi pulled a similar trick on Chirac. Berlusconi was mad at Chirac at the time (over the ENEL would-be takeover of Suez) and he may be squeezing a bit hard to get a message through under cover of a supposedly folksy-friendly gesture. Chirac has to pretend it's all good fun, but you can bet that's not what he's thinking.

I don't know if Bush had any reason to feel annoyed with Merkel, but the gesture is power language, both private (very personally to Merkel, who feels the contact in a part of the body it is not usual to touch), and public (Bush is saying both: "Angela's my buddy" and "I'm her superior").