Arms (Legs and Plain Whole Body) Reduction

US President Barack Obama (L) greets his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev upon his arrival for dinner during the Nuclear Security Summit at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, April 12, 2010. AFP PHOTO / ERIC FEFERBERG (Photo credit should read ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images)

I’m surprised how many of the opening summit portraits show Obama so small.

It wasn’t completely because of the vantage, because the pictures on the newswires — of world leaders meeting Obama before the opening banquet — show a mix of scales. Could the shrinkage be due, at least in part, to the fact the Administration never really sold the significance of the summit, and Obama’s anti-nuke diplomacy, to the American public and the domestic media? (These poll numbers seem telling along those lines.)

The photo offers the two otherwise heavyweights of the summit, a mini-Obama with the mini-Medvedev, if you could even tell.

Update: Now here’s an explanation. The media is up-in-arms about being “sidelined.”