Daily Meme: A History of Shakenalysis

by

  • 2013: "Briefly laying aside differences hardened over decades, President Barack Obama on Tuesday shook the hand of the president of Cuba at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela."
  • 2013: "Obama Shakes Hands With Raul Castro. Let's All Freak Out."
  • 2013: "An encounter between Obama and Iran's new president at the United Nations on Tuesday would be the most important-or at least the most analyzed-handshake since the historic grip between Rabin and Arafat (or, if you prefer, Nixon and Elvis)."
  • 2011: "It is not unusual for members of European royalty to greet Japan's imperial couple with a social kiss. Therefore, the agency does not consider such a greeting to be a breach of etiquette. For the record, Mrs. Clinton greeted the emperor with a handshake."
  • 2010: "A conservative Muslim minister in Indonesia who is being criticized for shaking hands with Michelle Obama-and thus violating his pious claim that he avoids contact with women not related to him-blamed the exchange on the First Lady and said the touching was not his fault."
  • 2009: "Obama, Gaddafi shake hands at G8 dinner"
  • 2009: "What's in a handshake? The clasping of hands by President Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has set off a debate over what kind of signal Obama was sending."
  • 2005: "'If I want to talk with you, I'll shake your hand,' says one man. 'I ain't gonna hold your hand and walk down the damn street, you know.' Told that that's the way it's done in the Middle East, the man says: 'They don't do it in New York City that way.'"
  • 2000: "The White House says Fidel Castro approached Bill Clinton. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told reporters: 'As I understand it, it was a chance encounter that Mr Castro initiated.'"
  • 2000: "George W. Bush called on Al Gore at the Vice-President's official residence in Washington as a light snow fell, but there was little sign of frostiness between the pair. They shook hands, smiling for cameras outside the Old Naval Observatory before disappearing inside."
  • 1995: "Clinton says handshake with Serbian president was difficult"
  • 1995: "'Gerry was concerned about the protocol of how he should go up to the President, but when he walked up, the President gave him a very big handshake,' said Representative Peter T. King, a Republican from Seaford, L.I., who sat to the right of Mr. Adams at the lunch. After an awkward moment of silence, the room exploded with applause."
  • 1987: "So if it was nothing more than a handshake, that was quite enough. The President of the United States and the leader of the Soviet Union-whose societies' enmity is as elemental as that of two Stone Age alpha males-redefined the gesture. No man, even a superpower's head of state, can hold a thousand nuclear warheads in his hand, yet at the fingertips of each of these men is the button that, when pressed, could reduce our world to an ash."
  • 1974: "Ford Shaking Hands Again"
  • 1964: "President Johnson, bandages on three fingers of his right hand after six days of cross-country campaigning, is doing his best to avoid Western handshakes."
  • 1956: "Shall the Best Handshake Be Nominated?"
  • 1931: "Machine-like, they counted the guests at the White House yesterday and determined that the number of persons who shook hand with the President and Mrs. Hoover was exactly 6,429."
  • 1929: "Handshake Hits Snag at Capital"
  • 1922: "Every now and again movements are started to relieve the President of the United States of the burden of shaking hands."

A second Trump administration will cement a right-wing majority on the Supreme Court for a generation, and put our collective future in the hands of someone who will be virtually unchecked by our institutions. The country has shifted rightward, and the reverberations will ensue for potentially the next few decades. In this climate, a robust independent media ecosystem will be more important than ever. We're committed to bringing you the latest news on how Trump's agenda will actually affect the American people, shining a light on the stories corporate media overlooks and keeping the public informed about how power really works in this country.

Quality journalism is expensive to produce, and we don't have corporate backers to rely on to fund what we do. Everything we do is thanks to our incredible community of readers, who chip in a few dollars at a time to make our work possible. Any amount you give today will help us continue reporting on what matters to our democracy.

You can help power this newsroom by making a one-time donation or by becoming a member today.