[Odd] Iraqi journalist throws shoes at Bush during press conference

yes, bush has handled iraq with humor, remember when he pretended he was looking for WMD under a table when it became clear they wouldnt find any.

bush is so funny

 

That guy will be lauded as a hero in his country, probably not going to get significant jail time and will be on the talk show circuit for years.

It was funny.

DD

 

Dude, what if the shoe had been fitted with a pint sized NUCLEAR BOMB???? OMG!!!!111eleven

I love it when people lose an argument, then try to dig themselves out of a hole with silly logic

 

It couldn't be a Nuclear bomb, because there are no WMD in Iraq, silly.

DD

 

I think many of you are missing the point. I think its fine and good that people disrespect and criticize the President. I never supported the invasion of Iraq either. The problem is the President isn't the king and GW Bush is only a temporary occupant of that office. What something like this shows is that it is possible for someone to get in position to make a physical threat to the President. In this case it happened to be non-lethal and rather humorous threat but still a physical threat. Whether you agree or disagree with any particular president's policy the office is still important and such actions could embolded others to try the same thing.

 

I do find this ironic coming from someone like you who has parroted exagerations of potential threats to the US and as taken umbrage at perceived insults towards this president.

You might find my logic silly but you have yet to refute it. Again would you have felt the same if instead of a shoe it had been a bottle or anything else that might've done more damage that might've been in the room?

 

The Iraqi people speak

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BAGHDAD - An Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush was being held for questioning by the Iraqi prime minister's guards, an official said Monday, as Arabs across the Middle East hailed the incident as a proper send-off to the unpopular U.S. president.

Muntadar al-Zeidi was being interrogated over whether anybody paid him to throw his shoes at Bush during a press conference Sunday in Baghdad and was being tested for alcohol and drugs, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Al-Zeidi's colleagues said the journalist was kidnapped last year by Shiite militias and released after his TV station, Al-Baghdadia, intervened.

The Shiite journalist, who is in his late 20s, was being held at the headquarters of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the official. His shoes were being held as evidence, he added.

Al-Baghdadia repeatedly aired pleas to release al-Zeidi on Monday, while showing footage of explosions and playing background music that denounced the U.S. in Iraq.

"We have all been mobilized to work on releasing him, and all the organizations around the world are with us," said Abdel-Hameed al-Sayeh, the manager of Al-Baghdadia in Cairo, where the station is based. "This whole thing is putting the Iraqis and the Americans to a test. Are they going to release him or try him?"

Called a 'hero'
Al-Jazeera television interviewed Saddam Hussein's chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi, who offered to defend al-Zeidi, calling him a "hero."

Al-Jazeera and many other Arab satellite TV stations repeatedly aired the incident Monday. Al-Zeidi leapt from his chair as Bush and al-Maliki were about to shake hands Sunday and hurled his shoes at the president, who was about 20 feet away.

"This is a farewell kiss, you dog," he yelled in Arabic. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

Al-Zeidi was immediately wrestled to the ground by Iraqi security guards.

Many other Arab journalists and commentators, fed up with U.S. policy in the Middle East and Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam, echoed al-Zeidi's sentiments Monday.

Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the influential London-based newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, wrote on the newspaper's Web site that the incident was "a proper goodbye for a war criminal."

Beyond extreme disrespect
Showing the sole of your shoe to someone in the Arab world is a sign of extreme disrespect, and striking someone with them is even worse.

"This great Arab shoe sums up the history of the criminal Bush, who is responsible for the loss of lives of hundreds of thousands of Islamic sons and who remained arrogant, spiteful and mean-spirited until the last moment of his term," wrote Abdel-Sattar Qassem, a political science professor at An Najah University in the West Bank town of Nablus, on a Palestinian Web site.

Thousands took to the streets Monday in Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City, where supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr burned American flags to protest against Bush and called for the release of al-Zeidi.

"Bush, Bush, listen well: Two shoes on your head," the protesters chanted.

Ghufran al-Saidi, a Shiite lawmaker from al-Sadr's bloc, told AP that she was demanding the immediate release of al-Zeidi.

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Well, I guess that is what you get when you invade another country and kill a lot of innocent people.

More innocent people died yesterday after this incident....I guess the Iraqi people are not so forgiving....can't blame them one bit.

DD

 

You do realize the response time in the vid you posted was longer and way more damage could have been done.

 

well hey, i guess that reporter needs to work on his aim so he can throw shoes at our next president!

anyway, i found it kind of funny but disturbing.

 

you should try watching it a fourth time, this time in fast motion. they react quicker.

as somebody in the thread in the other forum said, these are not superheroes. this isnt a movie, and they dont hop in front of moving bullets and other projectiles while they are in the air. they are human and have the reflexes of humans. they react as quickly as possible, which they did, and the guy was on the ground within 5 seconds of throwing the first shoe.

saying the secret service did a poor job just because some idiot was able to throw 2 shoes within 4 seconds is idiotic.

 

Put him over a dunking booth and we should all get a chance.

 

How much do you think that pair of shoes would go for on eBay in a few years?

 

at any rate, it was a lot funnier than the blind skit on SNL

 

from flying planes into buildings to throwing shoes in just 6 years. my how the standards for muslim heroism have declined.

 

Do you really think flying a plain into a building or any other form of terrorism was a standard of Muslims heroism?

How ignorant and prejudice can you be? Do you think blowing up a church and killing innocent black children during the civil rights movement was a standard of heroism for whites?

 

Not all muslims believe in terrorism... Don't you watch the news?

 

does the basso hate muslims?

methinks yes.
sad really...

 

the rane in spane falls manely on the plane.

 

Basso gives anal douche a bad name......

 

i wonder if they're gonna send him to gitmo now