Really? The only thing my brain pattern matched to “embarrassing handshake, political” was the Rumsfeld-Hussein handshake. Google for “hussein handshake” for me claims 15+ million hits, and the front page is all Rumsfeld. If you consider politically-charged-body-language in general, I can recall the US right-wing being upset that Obama bowed to foreign leaders and the US left-wing being upset that Bush Jr. held hands with the Saudi crown prince, but I never had the impression that even this broader category of complaint was common from any part of the political spectrum.
Jack’s reference is probably more apropos; this fake story might have been chosen specifically to be vaguely reminiscent of a real story.
I don’t remember the Rumsfeld-Hussein handshake making the rounds, and that apparently was before I mostly stopped paying attention to political news, but my memories of how often this phenomenon occurs may not be representative.
If the hypothesis I proposed in the grandparent were correct regardless, then I imagine the significance behind the Rumsfeld-Hussein picture making the rounds is that the U.S. did back Hussein, so the upset was not that a member of our administration appeared to have associated with a negative figure, but that at one turn we built up a dictator when it seemed politically advantageous, and at another framed him as a monster who was worth taking down even if he didn’t pose an active danger.
For all that my own policies tend to lean liberal though, I wouldn’t credit the average Democrat with being especially discriminating; it’s entirely likely that my above hypothesis is simply wrong.
Really? The only thing my brain pattern matched to “embarrassing handshake, political” was the Rumsfeld-Hussein handshake. Google for “hussein handshake” for me claims 15+ million hits, and the front page is all Rumsfeld. If you consider politically-charged-body-language in general, I can recall the US right-wing being upset that Obama bowed to foreign leaders and the US left-wing being upset that Bush Jr. held hands with the Saudi crown prince, but I never had the impression that even this broader category of complaint was common from any part of the political spectrum.
Jack’s reference is probably more apropos; this fake story might have been chosen specifically to be vaguely reminiscent of a real story.
I don’t remember the Rumsfeld-Hussein handshake making the rounds, and that apparently was before I mostly stopped paying attention to political news, but my memories of how often this phenomenon occurs may not be representative.
If the hypothesis I proposed in the grandparent were correct regardless, then I imagine the significance behind the Rumsfeld-Hussein picture making the rounds is that the U.S. did back Hussein, so the upset was not that a member of our administration appeared to have associated with a negative figure, but that at one turn we built up a dictator when it seemed politically advantageous, and at another framed him as a monster who was worth taking down even if he didn’t pose an active danger.
For all that my own policies tend to lean liberal though, I wouldn’t credit the average Democrat with being especially discriminating; it’s entirely likely that my above hypothesis is simply wrong.