What's in a Handshake

Reason's Michael Moynihan has a sharp take on the Obama-Chavez glad-handing:

For those paid to pontificate—myself included—there is a great desire to read deeply into photo-ops and extemporaneous comments that that are of minor significance. The 24-hour newscycle demands it. So the Obama-Chavez handshake becomes a sign of desperation, a desire to be loved, a warm gesture to a brutal autocrat. The mere willingness to talk to blustering fools like Chavez is a "hard-headed formula for advancing U.S. interests" and shows that, at long last, there is an adult in charge of American foreign policy. Both ideas are nonsense.