The post-meeting press conference in Bratislava on Thursday evening featuring US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin was more or less exactly what was expected. Indeed, it was a lot like the atmosphere Bush had sought to create throughout his five-day trip through Europe. Friendly. Positive. Stressing areas of agreement.

Indeed, while Bush refrained this time from calling his Russian colleague "Pootie-Poot", he did refer to him as his friend, calling him by his first name Vladimir, and seemingly every other sentence of Bush's statement began, "we agreed." Putin, too, played his role well and likewise toed the party line by talking about the importance of the Russian-US relationship. He also took care to stress the areas of agreement while giving short shrift to those issues where the two don't quite see eye-to-eye.

The love fest was actually eerily reminiscent of the frequent high-level meetings between German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his good friend Vladimir Putin. (The two have met face-to-face 28 times in the past four plus years, most recently in December 2004.) Schroeder is fond of emphasizing his friendship with the Russian president and has even invited Putin to his home. Schroeder also likes calling him a "flawless democrat," a formulation he agreed to as recently as December -- right in the middle of the Ukraine election debacle which saw Putin supporting establishment candidate Viktor Yanukovych over the opposition candidate (and popular vote winner) Viktor Yushchenko.

But in Bratislava, the similarities between Bush and Schroeder in their approach to Putin ended with the smiles and the backslapping. In fact, it was the subtext of the US-Russia meeting that was most interesting -- a subtext absent from Russia-Germany get-togethers. Bush, as it happened, had spent the weeks leading up to the Slovakian summit firing off frequent admonishments to Moscow. He is concerned about the course Putin is steering and let the world know about it.

Schroeder? Aside from a meek, privately issued hand slap delivered by telephone during the Ukraine election crisis in December, silence has reigned.

Causes for concern are many and primarily focus on Putin's seemingly ambiguous commitment to democracy. Putin, in recent months, has presided over the somewhat questionable break-up of the oil giant Yukos, rescinded the rights of Russian citizens to elect their own regional governors and placed that power firmly in his own hands, and has silenced a number of media outlets critical of his leadership. In addition to democracy issues, however, Bush and Putin have also butted heads over a number of foreign policy differences, most recently highlighted by Putin's avowal that he believes Iran is not interested in building a nuclear weapon -- a position Bush categorically disagrees with.

The European media has been fond of taking Putin to task for his waywardness. The silence from European leaders, particularly from Schroeder, has been deafening.

To be fair, Schroeder has a defense at the ready. He feels that the best way to ensure that Putin continues (or resumes) his careful approach to the West is to be gentle. There are also a number of German business interests at stake in Russia -- centering primarily on Russia's enormous oil and gas deposits -- that Schroeder is midwifing.

But Bush, for all his diplomatic bumbling prior to and even since the Iraq war (and including his faux pas on Wednesday night when he neglected to take off his gloves when greeting his Slovakian hosts), is not shy about confronting Putin when he sees a problem. Furthermore, he does so publicly, making it much more difficult for Putin to return to business as usual. Indeed, the cheery press conference -- while to be expected -- was all the more interesting for the clear disagreements separating the two leaders and the direct way Bush addressed those differences. Diplomacy, Bush seemed to be saying, can -- and perhaps should -- work like a friendship. Tell your friend when you think he or she is straying. But at the same time, show your commitment to the foundation of the relationship.