If you haven't see the video of the "handshake," I suggest you do, at your earliest convenience.   [the best version I have seen was on MSNBC. It was taken from far enough away to provide perspective on the body language and large size differential between the President and his nominee]  The moments captured there are rare: non-actors enacting in real life--a bit crudely, I admit--a deeper revelation-- in this case, of, among other things, our President's understanding of what it means to be President.

Revelation through human behavior at the well-planned ceremony for the President's announcement of his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court is, for me, an especially beautiful irony.   Ceremonies such as this are supposed to provide the opposite of revelation.  They are not meant to reveal reality; they are designed to assert a false reality, and dispossess any genuine reality lurking in the area.  I assume that is why the President had the ceremony in the first place.  He can control what happens there, control the message etc, etc.  But, as the video shows, the President stepped all over any message anyone may have thought would convey normality in the relationship between the executive and judicial branches of government.  If through ritual the ceremony was designed to reassure doubtful Americans that the President could at least simulate growing into the Presidency, maybe it succeeded, that is, until you saw the "handshake."

I first saw the video when for some reason they showed the clip on MSNBC while the reporter discussed the Gorsuch nomination.  The reporter made no comment about the clip, but as soon as I saw it I stopped listening to what the reporter was saying.  I grabbed the remote and played the sequence back three or four times, at first to make sure I had seen what I thought I saw, and then to marvel, as each time I played it back, I felt myself descending, level by level, to a deeper understanding of the President, his nominee, and the predicament we all are now in.

Here is what I think I see:  The moment he completes his acceptance speech, Gorsuch turns to the President, standing behind him on the podium.  The President, much, much larger than his nominee, grasps Gorsuch's hand, extended for a handshake.  The President pulls Gorsuch toward himself with an aggressive tug anchored by the President's substantial mass.  Gorsuch, evidently not expecting this, and standing stiffly at an angle to the President, is pulled slightly off balance.  The President again pulls Gorsuch toward him--a little harder this time--again pulling him off balance.  At this point it does not appear to be a handshake, but something that is happening to the victim Gorsuch, as he is swiftly, psychologically transported from surprise to--at the second pull--annoyance.  Then the President roughly pats his and Gorsuch's clasped hands.  The way the President does it, this is not the gesture of warmth that the additional hand placed gently atop clasped hands usually signifies.  Rather it looks like a modified version of the medieval oath of fealty, where, originally, the vassal knelt before the lord, placed his hands between the lord's hands, and the lord squeezed the vassal's hands roughly to seal the deal with pain.

But the President is not yet done, though Gorsuch thinks he is.  Expecting to be released from the President's grip, Gorsuch starts to turn back to the lectern to gather his papers, but the President makes the strongest, deepest, yank yet, and Gorsuch's body jerks, like a misbehaving boy being brought back to reality by his father.  You can almost feel the tug in Gorsuch's humerus socket.  Gorsuch reflexively reaches with his left hand to touch the President's hand, which still has him in its grip.  Gorsuch seems to be signaling that he believes the handshake should be over.  Finally, the President relents, letting go his grip and turning to Gorsuch's wife with wide arms.  Gorsuch gathers his papers from the lectern, not smiling.

If you had wondered what the President really thinks about judges and the American judicial system, these moments might have answered that for you, if you accept that the way the President shook Gorsuch's hand reveals something true about the President.  Of course, since that "handshake," the President has indicated, with words, that he doesn't understand the separation of powers, doesn't understand how judges fit into the American scheme of governance, doesn't understand how the law works, and doesn't understand that in his own interest he shouldn't publicly treat his Supreme Court nominee to that sort of handshake.  But of course, it was an opportunity that the President himself had manufactured for the purpose of public relations.  The hand shake was required, but it would have been better for the President's public relations if it had been a normal handshake, not one that revealed to everyone with eyes to see that the President is not on board with the American political system and that he doesn't believe in the separation of powers, but only in power, and overpowering.  He may have been a great campaigner, given our current political environment, but the handshake shows that he is no politician.  Incidentally, the online White House video version of the handshake is taken from an angle, behind Gorsuch, that hides most of what I have described.

As for Gorsuch, what did we learn?  That he has probably spent too much time alone, reading and writing about the law, and not enough time out there with a variety of people.  Gorsuch seems to be a decent man, but to have achieved his decency the easy way, by isolation from the elements of a more various life.  I wonder if too much of his reality is abstract, and seen through the lens of the law, and if he is for that reason prone to ideology as a framework for deciding what ought to be.  If Gorsuch had learned a little street smarts along with his law he would've yanked back on the first yank.