Too bad George didn’t kick his ass.
An Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes and an insult at George W. Bush, without hitting him, as the US president was shaking hands with the Iraqi premier at his Baghdad office on Sunday.
As the two leaders met in Nuri al-Maliki’s private office, a journalist sitting in the third row jumped up, shouting: “It is the farewell kiss, you dog,” and threw his shoes one after the other towards Bush.Maliki made a protective gesture towards the US president, who ducked and was not hit.
The journalist, Muntazer al-Zaidi from Al-Baghdadia channel which broadcasts from Cairo, was frogmarched from the room by security staff, an AFP journalist said.
Soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture. After Saddam Hussein’s statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, many onlookers beat the statue’s face with their soles.
I wonder if al-Zaidi was on hand for that celebration.
Some Iraqi journalists stood up to apologise.
As always, President Bush handled the unexpected with aplomb:
……Bush said: “Thanks for apologising on behalf of the Iraqi people. It doesn’t bother me. If you want the facts, it was a size 10 shoe that he threw”.
Playing down the incident, the president later added: “I don’t know what the guy’s cause is… I didn’t feel the least bit threatened by it.”
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081214183648.9zmc87b1&show_article=1
No enemy likes being invaded and occupied, especially when that country happens to be smack in the middle of Islamic terrorist nation-states. Hussein was a WMD wielding, mass grave-filling, dissent-squashing megalomaniac. Some people miss that but then, there’s some Russians who miss Stalin, too.
It’s amazing how those responsible for making Iraq a better place, are held in contempt instead of praise for enabling an environment where this shoe-tossing idiot won’t be disemboweled and left on his family’s doorstep.
BTW: This ‘journalist’ moron claimed to have been kidnapped by allah-worshiping assholes, beaten, questioned, and subsequently released:
An Iraqi TV journalist who was kidnapped last week in a busy Baghdad neighbourhood said he was released unharmed before dawn on Monday.
Muntazer al-Zaidi, a correspondent for the independent al- Baghdadiya television station, said he spent more than two days blindfolded, barely eating and drinking, after armed men forced him into a car as he walked to work on Friday morning in the bustling Bab al-Sharji area of central Baghdad.
“My release is a miracle. I couldn’t believe I was still alive,” Zaidi, 28, told Reuters by telephone.
Zaidi said the kidnappers had beaten him until he lost consciousness. They used his necktie to blindfold him and bound his hands with his shoelaces.
He never learned the identity of the kidnappers, who questioned him closely about his work but did not demand a ransom.
The captors later told Zaidi he would be released, throwing him on to a dark street, still blindfolded, around 3 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Monday. He was then picked up by his brother.
Well, looks like not only Zaidi got to keep his head, but his throwing arm was no worse for the wear.
And of course, he “detests” America:
The Iraqi journalist who caused a furore when he hurled his shoes at visiting US President George W. Bush “detested America” and had been plotting such an attack for months, colleagues said on Monday.
Muntazer al-Zaidi, 28, was being hailed as a hero by some after his high profile attack on the US president who ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and as anti-US demonstrations took place in Baghdad and the holy Shiite city of Najaf.“This was a spontaneous action by an Iraqi citizen who was showing his dismay at seeing the president of the country which is occupying our nation,” said Liwaa Sumeissim from the anti-American Sadr movement.
The Iraqi government however branded Zaidi’s actions as “shameful” and demanded an apology from his employer Al-Baghdadia television, which in turn was calling for his immediate release from custody.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081215101512.zc72xjiu&show_article=1
As expected, the leftists along with their Islamo-nut counterparts are gleeful, and the asshat Keith Olbermann will probably devote an entire “Countdown” program to the shoe throwing idiot, dubbing him The Best Person in the World.
That’s alright. After eight years of anti-America, anti-Bush lunacy, turn about is fair play.
Just wait and see what happens when Barack Obama is forced to dodge more than just a couple of shoes.