![\"Iraqi](\"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/screen1.jpg\" "\\"Iraqi")
<\/a><\/p>\nAlso, he should be thankful that Muntader al-Zaidi, 28, the Iraqi journalist who, yesterday, one at a time, threw both of his shoes at President Bush, but missed, above, though fairly accurate, doesn’t exactly have a killer right arm, or pitch for Baghdad’s Salam baseball team<\/a>.<\/p>\n According to The New York Times<\/em><\/a>, al-Zaidi,<\/p>\n a correspondent for Al Baghdadia<\/a>, an independent Iraqi television station, stood up about 12 feet from Mr. Bush and shouted in Arabic: \u201cThis is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!\u201d He then threw a shoe at Mr. Bush, who ducked and narrowly avoided it.<\/p>\n As stunned security agents and guards, officials and journalists watched, Mr. Zaidi then threw his other shoe, shouting in Arabic, \u201cThis is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!\u201d That shoe also narrowly missed Mr. Bush as Prime Minister Maliki stuck a hand in front of the president\u2019s face to help shield him.<\/p>\n Other Iraqi journalists in the front row apologized to Mr. Bush, who was uninjured and tried to brush off the incident by making a joke. \u201cAll I can report is it is a size 10,\u201d he said, continuing to take questions and noting the apologies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The paper then rendered this perfectly symbolic moment of doublespeak:<\/p>\n [Bush] also called the incident a sign of democracy, saying, \u201cThat\u2019s what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves,\u201d as the man\u2019s screaming could be heard outside.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Some think his immediate troubles were the least of it. “I bet you dollars to dinars that press conference shoe-thrower is being tortured tonight, as we type,” tweeted BoingBoing.com<\/em>‘s Xeni Jardin<\/a>.<\/p>\n As this Christian Science Monitor<\/em> image, above, likening the Bush’s shoe-ducking to Neo’s “bullet time” in The Matrix<\/em><\/a>, suggests, the incident drew wide media attention. It overpowered coverage of other events during Bush’s final presidential trip to the country he so royally screwed. “Nobody expected that someone would dare to do such a thing,” noted Atheer Kakan, an Iraqi reporter who works for the New York Times<\/em>, in a sobering podcast account of the attempted shoe-in<\/a>, “and it was totally new experience.<\/p>\n![\"Muntader](\"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/15rushlarge4c.jpg\" "\\"Muntader")
<\/a>Mr. Maliki\u2019s security agents jumped on the man, wrestled him to the floor and hustled him out of the room. They kicked him and beat him until \u201che was crying like a woman,\u201d said Mohammed Taher, a reporter for Afaq, a television station owned by the Dawa Party, which is led by Mr. Maliki. Mr. Zaidi was then detained on unspecified charges.<\/p>\n![\"Whoa\u2026George](\"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/picture1.jpg\" "\\"Whoa\u2026George")
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![\"Beating](\"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/capt1049929106iraq_us_war_topix_xjd126.jpg\" "\\"Beating")
Many Americans will recall the earliest pictures out of Baghdad after it was occupied, and the famous statue of Saddam Hussein had been toppled: Iraqi men, mercilessly beating the cast-iron icon with their sandals, right. So gravely do Iraqis take this gesture that Kakan little hesitates comparing it to America’s worst disaster.<\/p>\n![\"Richard](\"http:\/\/harryallen.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/richardreid_374x450.jpg\" "\\"Richard")
But from an American perspective,