Reading The Pictures: Obama-Putin <i>Not in Love!</i>

This week, we had the opportunity to contrast Bush and Obama in terms of a first encounter with Putin.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

2009-07-08-BushPutinJune01Herbert.jpg

2009-07-08-ObamaPutin.jpg

Apparently prompted by the eager Condi Rice (see paragraph 22), Dubya convinced himself before they had even met that Putin would become a best friend for life.

Of course, the quote from the first engagement at the Slovenian Summit in June of '01 at the Brdo Castle in Slovenia is famous by now:


"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. "I was able to get a sense of his soul. "

It was in that very first meeting Bush decided Putin had to come down to the ranch, leading to an intimate three day visit which included that famous pickup truck ride.

But that was then and this is now. This week, we saw a return to a more unremarkable get-acquainted process marked by the mundane realities of healthy distance; feeling other people other out; and, yes, skepticism for gamesmanship and power-tripping. Perhaps that's why, as the NYT reported, Obama slipped not once, but twice, in referring to Putin, the enduring heavy in Russia, as (still) the country's President.

The image above -- one of dozens and dozens, I might add, that captures Bush and Putin (only too happy to indulge Bush's fantasy) in an intimate grip -- is the parting photo from that first Slovenia summit. The second image, as Obama engages the hard-nosed Putin, captures Barack at Putin's dacha outside Moscow doing what Bush never did, which was start by breaking the ice.

For more visual politics, follow BAGnewsNotes on Twitter).

(image 1: George Herbert/A.P. IMAGE 2: Novo-Ogarevo, July 7, 2009. ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AFP/Getty Images. linked pickup image: Crawford, Texas, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2001. Either AP Photo/Doug Mills or REUTERS/Win McNamee.)

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot