Formal oath-swearings are always accompanied by an open right hand. (And sometimes with the left hand on a Bible.) But you always swear with your fingers closed, not open. Open fingers are symbolic of insincerity or a lack of solemnity. Sir Thomas More: “When a man makes an oath, Meg, he’s holding himself in his own hands, like water. And if he opens his fingers then he needn’t hope to find himself again.”
Brett Kavanaugh’s opened-fingered oath showed who and what he is — a deceptive, unreliable partisan.
Valerie Plame got it right; ditto Barack Obama.
Naomi Watts got it wrong when she played Plame in Doug Liman’s Fair Game.
