The Shoe Thrower Uprising
15 December 2008 9:00 am by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
There is no doubt that anyone throwing a shoe at the President of the United
States would be jailed. The
reaction from that arrest is what’s most interesting.
Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Monday to demand the release of a
reporter who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush, as Arabs across
many parts of the Middle East hailed the journalist as a hero and praised
his insult as a proper send-off to the unpopular U.S. president.The protests came as suicide bombers and gunmen targeted Iraqi police, U.S.-allied
Sunni guards and civilians in a series of attacks Monday that killed at least
17 people and wounded more than a dozen others, officials said.Journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who was kidnapped by militants last
year, was being held by Iraqi security Monday and interrogated about
whether anybody paid him to throw his shoes at Bush during a press conference
the previous day in Baghdad, said an Iraqi official. [...] (emphasis added)
George W. Bush is not only hated in this country, but in the Arab world he
is the very embodiment of The Ugly American.
Oh, and by the way, some are pointing to the Secret Service, asking where they were on this one, which is rather remarkable considering Bush doesn’t do open events. So the audience was a known quantity and no one expected a shoe from a journalist. That’s the point.
The only reason Bush went to Iraq was to put an exclamation point on the Bush
doctrine, which he and his supporters hail as “keeping us safe.” The
trip to Baghdad was to be a PR propaganda tour to enhance his legacy. Instead,
President Ego got a shoe hurled at his head. Not by some citizen, but by
a journalist who had once been kidnapped by militants. Sustaining a
presidential ego comes with a price attached.
This event is representative of what Bush-Cheney has left Obama-Biden. The
Shoe Thrower Uprising on the “hero’s” behalf is representative of
a huge opportunity. There is no way Democrats can do any worse than the outgoing
crowd, which has become a global embarrassment, a disgrace fitting of a dirty
shoe.
