Wednesday, October 08, 2008

The Great Handshake Controversy   [Byron York]

It seemed obvious to anyone watching the debate last night that John McCain and Barack Obama had an outwardly warm handshake and pat on the back immediately after the debate ended.  The two were standing so close that moderator Tom Brokaw had to ask them to part so Brokaw could see the TelePrompter.  Yet a number of commentators on the left have suggested that McCain refused to shake Obama's hand. 

"Did McCain just refuse to shake Obama's hand?" asked Josh Marshall of TPM.  "It certainly looks like McCain left Obama hanging when Obama put his hand out to shake."

The Washington Post's Tom Shales said much the same thing.  "After the debate ended," Shales wrote in the edition of the paper delivered to my door this morning, "a camera caught Obama extending a hand in McCain's direction and what looked like McCain refusing to shake it, although watching at home one couldn't be certain."  The Post's Dana Milbank wrote, also in the paper edition, "The two men finished their small-bore skirmish and parted after an awkward attempt at a handshake that left partisans squabbling about who had snubbed whom." 

But the real handshake had been really, really obvious.  Marshall soon corrected himself.  Now, in the web version of Shales' column, the handshake passage is gone.  But Milbank still wanted to leave some spin on the story. In the web version of his column, he writes, "The two men finished their small-bore skirmish and parted after a handshake that left partisans squabbling about whether someone had been snubbed."

10/08 08:39 AMShare