Michelle single handedly destroys British/American alliance.

British newspapers refers to it differently - some find it very good others find it was against the protocol. Not everybody found it correct.
I know others who feel just like I do - and we certainly are no medias, but just ordinary people.

Another thing is the majority of us like Obamas and the media writes about them very positively even in this case.
Had Laura Bush done it - the majority of us don´t like Bush - the media would have critized her for doing it.

well put.
well put.

might i add, **** that queen bullshit.

king queen, master, slave, satrap, what the **** ever.

wake up, globe.

your all slaves.

Oh, look, mr. rage talks.

Ogi, I tend to agree with your generalizations, well, sometimes..

but your indictments are easy stuff. You tend to do surface.

Just flailing may be cute at fourteen, but not at your age.

(yes, I remember stuff was cut here.)

Oops, sorry - I didn't consider that you are British. [And might well be that I just look in the wrong papers and know and meet the wrong British.]

I am not British, but Swedish, also read British as well as other Scandinavian papers and talk with Scandinavians. According to Svenska Dagbladet there is a diversity in GB, which I easily checked.

Really? I'd thought that they were more reporting about the US reactions ...

Since the Queen used her hand to show her friendliness first, what was the First Lady supposed to do? Stand there with her two hands at her side? Stand there with her arms folded in front of herself? The only correct thing to do, in my opinion, was to reciprocate, to show all, including the Queen, that the warm touch from the Queen was welcome.

The bolded part says it all in terms of how we view it differently I think. If someone touches me, I don't feel they're 'putting me in my place', I feel that they feel affection or the urge to connect and they're doing it. I view it as a very positive thing.
No one said Michelle Obama HAD to feel protective toward the queen - maybe she just did- instinctively. So maybe it had nothing to do with alphaness or nervousness.

As far as the touching thing goes - I'm a toucher- maybe you're not. But I think a lot of Americans are - although, I could be wrong -maybe it just seems that way to me, because a lot of people touch me and hug me and even kiss me on the cheek, even at a first meeting...in Jersey, if you're a woman, it's been my experience that men and women take your hand and lean in for a kiss on the cheek - that's how I grew up. So it's instinctive for me to touch someone when I meet them.
And with people smaller than me, yes, I do lean in and put my head down and my hand on their back to listen to them.

But I do think a woman can get away with being a casual toucher more so than a man can. I feel allowed to gently touch the arm of anyone -child, man, woman, old, young -as I speak to them...unless I get the 'hands off and stay back' vibe. Which admittedly happens...some people just emit frostiness as in, 'Even if it makes sense to touch this person - DON'T DO IT!-they won't like it.'

Obviously Michelle Obama didn't get that vibe from the queen and the queen apparently didn't feel that way toward Michelle Obama.

But I think it could be an American/democratic/all beings created equal thing. Maybe if I thought about it - I wouldn't even want to touch her and I'd have to think long and hard about whether or not I'd curtsy if the queen ever gave me an 'audience'. I mean, why? If I thought about what she's contributed to the world and found it worthy - maybe- but I'd never do it just because of who her dad happened to be.

It used to be people shook hands, except in France and other southern European countries.
You hugged close friends and relatives when you met very seldom.
When I lived in USA it was the same.
Then about 15 (?) years ago it started that everybody hugged and touched people when meeting or talking. It has become modern to do so.
If we go a little farther back i history western politicians who met shook hands and the eastern block politicians smacked kisses - often a Juda´s kiss.
Of course a touch and a hug can mean as you say be a positive thing. But there is no reason for putting your hand on my arm or shoulder by a normal conversation or just because we meet. Not everybody knows their limit in touching.
You can show friendliness, affection and other positive feelings by a smile, listining to a person. A handshake and friendly smiles in their eyes tells me much more than a hug and not seeing a person´s face and eyes.

A few years ago, our then Oz PM, Paul Keating, gently put his hand (I believe) on the Queen's shoulder (I believe) ......

Well .....! You should have heard the reaction from the Brit press!: What an outrage! What a disgrace! What disrespect for Her Majesty!!!!! What sort of uncouth slob would do such a thing?

Pretty funny stuff to us folk back home!

That is the media.
Paul Keating gently puts his hand on the Queen´s shoulder and that is disgrace.
He is/was not so interesting for the media so he gets scolded
Michelle Obama is now the "First Lady" in the media and what she does is cute and can be forgiven.
If you or I would have done it it would have been a disgrace too.
Hypocracy from the side of the media.

Michelle Obama is not just the "first lady" in some kind of conditional way that needs to be bracketed by quotation marks. She is indeed the First Lady, and that position has always (deservedly or not) received either special scrutiny or special consideration from the media.

You sound like a hater.

Called him "The Lizard of Oz"!

oh my. I'd be furious if taller people were always touching me. I don't want people with that kind of instinct anywhere around me. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be a common instinct in North American adults I've met over the past 50+ years.

all relevant people liked it? Walter, don't get carried away just because you want to be seen to be on the popular side of a discussion.

Of course Michelle Obama is the First Lady as the wife of the President.
I put it in brackets because the media sees her as very important to them for pictures of a good looking woman more than for what she really is: a woman who has a good education, is working, who is intellegent and can represent USA.

I don't agree that their main attraction to her is her being "good looking". I think her impact is much broader. She gets attention because she is an obviously and expressively intelligent and engaging person and a powerful personality.

I think there are a lot of people - some in the media - who would like to characterize the Obamas as "not ready for prime time" in some indefinable way. The nontroversy about her touching the queen, is one example of that. Your empty and pointless babblings on this thread are another.