Talk about hands-on diplomacy. A caught-on-tape moment at the recent G8 summit shows President Bush swooping in on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to give her a quick shoulder rub before proceeding to his seat.

Merkel looks stunned and visibly recoils from Bush’s touch.

The tabloids have pounced [and hard-hitting bastions of truth dissemination too], and so have comedians like Jon Stewart.

“That is the chancellor of Germany disengaging herself from the president of the United States,” Stewart said as the clip played on “The Daily Show” last night.

Comedian Hal Sparks said of the quickie massage, “Anybody with an ounce of sympathy was immediately creeped out for this woman, who you know is sitting trying to focus on some very important issues and Bush rolls by and goes, ‘What’s up girlfriend!’”

We’ve all had those moments — when someone invades our personal space by getting too close.

On his hit sitcom, comedian Jerry Seinfeld gave that guy a name: the “close talker.”

You would think world leaders might be more careful, but consider the challenge of being friendly across very different cultures.

“Personal space is completely different depending on the culture. It’s very different across cultures, so you have to be respectful and knowledgeable,” said body language expert Lillian Glass.

Well, golly. Gloria Steinem proposed in the pages of the New York Times a “one free grope rule,” whereby male employers were now allowed a free chance to do something worse than anything Clarence Thomas was ever accused of (besides, by the time Bill Clinton had groped Monica, he’d already laid more hands on more women than a guard searching for contraband at a women’s prison).

Liberals cheered Katie Roiphe when she wrote, also in the Times, “There is nothing inherently wrong . . . with [Monica Lewinsky's] attempt to translate her personal relationship with the President into professional advancement.”

Feminist author Jane Smiley, writing in The New Yorker, forgave Clinton because he was simply acting out of a human “desire to make a connection with another person.”