Touched by a pol

This is one of those times when the picture essentially is the story. The Politics of Good Touch, Bad Touch

Warren St. John in the Times: It was the neck rub heard round the world.

At the Group of 8 summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, this week, President Bush walked up behind the seated German chancellor, Angela Merkel, placed his hands upon her shoulders and gave what appeared to be a double squeeze. Ms. Merkel threw her arms into the air and seemed to grimace, and the news media and public were left to decipher the meaning of the incident. ...

In Moscow this month, President Vladimir V. Putin greeted a 5-year-old boy at the Kremlin, lifted his shirt and kissed his belly. Mr. Putin later explained the gesture as a spontaneous act of affection.

“He seemed very independent and serious,” Mr. Putin said at a news conference. “I wanted to cuddle him like a kitten.”

In Seattle in April, when a Boeing supervisor gave a cap to the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, not a man often accused of being excessively touchy-feely, Mr. Hu responded by wrapping his arms around the man and giving him a full-body embrace. “My first presidential hug,” declared the stunned supervisor, a man named Paul Dernier.

ZDP photos of Bush and Merkel and RTR-Russian Television Channel/Associated Press photo of Putin via the Times.