The shoe thrower ruined everything for Bush and he did it in the bottom of the 9th inning

[mtnsnake]

Until the shoe thrower came along, Bush was on a roll. He always had people out in front of him screening everything for him...newspapers, protests, TV newscasts, everything...always making sure that George never got to see any part of the world that hated him. He just couldn't face the reality.

It's been said that Bush has never even had the guts to read a single newspaper account of how people despise him so much. It's also been said that he did whatever he could to keep protests about him off the air. He didn't want to see it, and he didn't want anyone else to see it.

Of his 96 months in office, Bush was part way through his 95th month of escaping reality. Just one month to go and he'd make it. Then he fucked up and went to Iraq. He ran into a shoe thrower, a shoe thrower who hit a home run for the world in the 95th inning. Might as well say the bottom of the 9th. The shoe thrower drilled the message right down Bush's throat, almost literally, a message Bush never wanted to see firsthand.

That video, which is being shown over and over again all around the world, is more than just a shoe-throwing incident. It's a break-through message to Bush that he is a hated man across the world and that for once in his life he was going to face the music firsthand, no screening or shielding. He was forced to see it just in time. Talk about symbolism, wow.

[Mabus]

1. I just think it is poetic justice

Bush and the GOP pushed flip-flops to mock Kerry in 2004. Now it was a shoe that brought reality home to him.

Eat that El Pretzeldente!

[glitch]

2. Babs must be livid.

Her precioussss' beautiful mind has been sullied.

Junior's legacy has been set: he is the target of thrown shoes.

[swimboy]

25. I'm not sure.

I wouldn't be surprised if she hadn't hurled one or two shoes at him over the years.

[glitch]

31. Nah, she's not that likeable. :) nt

[Hieronymus]

34. Bush was so transparent in his attempt to be nonchalant about it. Pitiful..

This was meant as a reply to the original message .. I goofed.

[boppers]

3. You think he knows what "shoe throwing" means?

He could just avoid being briefed on the custom... :evilgrin:

[babylonsister]

4. He knows he is loathed. And if he didn't, he does now. nt

[mtnsnake]

6. He knows, but he never wanted to see it. The shoe thrower fixed that.

Yes, he sure knows now if he didn't before.

[Gman]

5. Hopefully this was just the beginning of justice

That Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and all the others are held accountable in a court of law. Be that court here in the US or they are extradicted to the Hague to be tried at the ICC for war crimes. May God have mercy on their souls because the world sure as hell will not.

[mtnsnake]

8. Amen to that, Gman

You never know how. Right now in Iraq they're protesting the streets, calling for the release of the shoe thrower, and they should.

Who knows how much momentum an incident like this can generate in the cause of justice.

[Stuart G]

7. K and R

[CrispyQ]

9. I hope he gets Time "Man of the Year" award. --nt

[CrispyQ]

10. I hope he gets Time "Man of the Year" award. --nt

[wiggs]

11. Well said...captures some of what I'm thinking about this whole episode. Has

Boston Tea Party overtones to me...some poetry...some David and Goliath....some Tian An Min Square...

In my opinion, this is not an attack on the presidency, an attack on the USA, terrorism, or uncivilized behavior. It is an expression....symbolism as you say. It was not meant to bodily injure the president but it was meant to diminishe B*sh and it did so greatly...I think without diminishing America. This POTUS deserves ridicule...deserves to be symbolically separated from mainstream presidents and mainstream america and I'm not sure it could have been done any more effectively. It may be the only justice that comes to him...OR...it may have contributed to the growing toxic feelings that more and more have for this administration...contributed a little bit more to a decision to punish rather than celebrate those responsible for heinous and criminal behavior. Hopefully someone, sometime, will paint a comprehensive, visible picture of all the misdeeds...will add them up...and the shoe incident will come at the end as commentary, maybe tipping opinions of some a little bit toward anger and contempt.

It will really be interesting to look back, some years from now, on this event and see the effects, if any, on public perception and resolution of the B*sh administration.

Man...the montage that could be put together...plastic turkeys, getting lost onstage, massaging shoulders of a woman world leader, falling off bikes, flubbing Texas idioms, holding hands with Bandar Bush, calling out blind guys cause they have the audacity to wear sunglasses in his presence, ducking shoes...endless

Of course, the shoe guy could just be nuts....

[Virginia Dare]

26. At least he has an excuse for being nuts..

he's lived under the violent oppression of Saddam and then the American Empire. What's dumbya's excuse, living with the dragon lady all those years?

[soulcore]

36. He was also detained and tortured...

after the invasion got on a roll.

Maybe THAT fact would help put a little context into this entire episode.

[soulcore]

37. You summed it up perfectly Wiggs.

I couldn't have said it any better myself.

[Richard Steele]

12. Nope. It takes more than a shoe to penetrate B*sh's fantasy bubble.

Have you seen his comments on the incident? He didn't
learn a damn thing from it. Message NOT received.

B*sh is not ever going to learn anything from any incident, period.
It's simply not in his skillset.

[Jennicut]

23. Oh, it was recieved. That joking was a show, he is seething underneath it all.

[Virginia Dare]

27. Agreed, he lives in his own little delusional fantasy world..

one where guilt, shame and embarassment do not exist. Little shrubby never does wrong. He'll be known as the benevolent father of a free Iraq one day as far as he is concerned.

[Betsy Ross]

13. K&R! n/t

[rvablue]

14. Agreed! n/t

[sohndrsmith]

15. You know what I find most striking/shocking about the incident?

Bush's reaction. He thought it was funny... no kidding. Look at his face right after the first shoe was thrown at him. He is so immature and sophomoric it's chilling... he has no bloody clue.... that's what I saw, anyway...

[depakid]

16. "That video, which is being shown over and over again all around the world"

Shown 3 times again tonight on ABC New South Wales- with photos of demonstrators hoisting up shoes on poles. LOL.

The commentator was humorously emphatic that al-Zeidi is a national hero!

[harun]

17. Awesome post and right on!

[uponit7771]

18. Yeap, Bush has NEVER had to take responsibility for ANYTHING

[nomaco-10]

19. It was beautiful....

The footage will be around for a thousand years to remind every generation that studies history and politics what a failed leader looks like.

His legacy was already going to go down as worst president ever, this footage put a seal on it and drives it home for the rest of the world to see and future generations to study.

[mtnsnake]

20. Yup & no matter how Bush tries to make light of it he knows he was humiliated in world class fashion

Finally someone did to him in public what most everyone has secretly wished they could do themselves.....shame George Bush for the entire world to see.

The footage will be around for a thousand years to remind every generation that studies history and politics what a failed leader looks like.

His legacy was already going to go down as worst president ever, this footage put a seal on it and drives it home for the rest of the world to see and future generations to study.

And this time, there is nothing Bush can do to keep this off the front pages. Yup, in the future when people are taught about Bush, this incident will be used over and over to sum up the feelings of the entire world towards the worst president ever.

My dream of seeing Bush get impeached will probably never come true, but this shoe-throwing incident is the next best thing, maybe even better. My hat is off to the shoe thrower for this!

[MadMaddie]

41. Cheney all but admitted in an interview that he and the rest

of the administration approved waterboarding. Rachal Maddow pointed out that Japanase were tried and hung during WWII by the Hague. The interesting thing is they are going all over the media trying to fix their image and all they are doing is making video confessions of their crimes which can be used in court.

[Laelth]

21. Nice way to put the incident in context. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth

[SeaLyons]

22. K&R...

wonder if he got his ducking skills from years of Laura throwing things at him....ha!!

Great post, mtnsnake.

:kick:

[FraDon]

24. Well seen! • My first thought was that this will become ICONIC.

k&r • As iconic as the astonishing young student standing, zen-like, in front of a line of Chinese tanks.

[Cha]

28. The Shoe Thrower is a Folk Hero

in the Middle East and he is a Hero to me.

That's what I was thinking on Sunday..what if this didn't happen and all the coporatemedia had was the gushing over bush?

Anytime the corporatemedia, who brought us bush and the War On Iraq, gets a big dose of Reality ..the world is a better place.

[sellitman]

29. He probably fulfilled Helen Thomas's life long dream.

:evilgrin:

[wildflower]

30. Yes, but...

I heard him saying that the Iraqis were very apologetic and that he doesn't hold it against the Iraqi media at all. He seemed to be saying that he was reassured this was just an isolated incident and that the rest of them don't feel that way.

I can't find a transcript of the quotes at the moment, but if I do, I'll post them.

EDIT...here is one of the quotes, from an interview with Martha Raddatz, ABC:

I guess. Look they were humiliated. The press corps, the rest of the Iraqi press corps was humiliated. These guys were just besides themselves about, they felt like he had disgraced their entire press corps and I frankly, I didn't view it as, I thought it was interesting, I thought it was unusual to have a guy throw his shoe at you. But I'm not insulted. I don't hold it against the government. I don't think the Iraqi press corps as a whole is terrible. And so, the guy wanted to get on TV and he did. I don't know what his beef is. But whatever it is I'm sure somebody will hear it.

EDIT AGAIN...here is the other quote, from http://www.keyc.com/node/14784 :

Bush took it all in stride. Bush says, "Journalists here were very apologetic, they were, you know, said this doesn't represent the Iraqi people...but that's what happens in a free society."

[Larry in KC]

32. I do have to question the analogy a bit...

Yes, it's the bottom of the ninth. But he's far from winning. It's more like he's losing about 23 to 1, but no one's bothering to tell the dickless piece of shit, and he somehow thinks he's winning, despite what the rest of the world sees.

If you're losing 23 to 1, though, it doesn't matter whether you think you're winning or not. The umpires, the other team, the rest of your team, and all of the fans know the real score.

Of course, I do love the schadenfreude of forcing him to begin to get an inkling of the real score.

And man, can that Iraqi journalist pitch! Sign him up!

[mtnsnake]

38. Bush was just a whiskers breath away from making it thru without a humiliating scene like this

until the shoe thrower stepped in and gave him a big black eye. If that's not hitting it out of the park in the bottom of the 9th then I don't know what is. :smoke:

And man, can that Iraqi journalist pitch! Sign him up!

Yes, quite an arm he's got!

[sohndrsmith]

33. nope. He just gave Bush his flippin' legacy because it's an image people might

remember with precision... unlike the horrific stuff that is not as ridiculous and for more important. It's a shame, really... Bush'll wear it like a badge of honor.

Sorry - shouldn't speak in future tense... he's doing it already. "Look, I have an easy out - we can all focus on the big ol' joke... heh heh heh..." blecch....

hope I'm wrong. Really wrong...

[lunatica]

35. Now there are two immortal shoe incidences in history

Kruschev taking his shoe off at the UN and pounding it on the podium while denouncing the Filipino delegate as a toady of American Imperialism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-banging_incident

And now this one of Muntadar al-Zaidi calling Bush a 'dog'.

Aaaah... History can be such a beautiful thing



:loveya:

[mtnsnake]

39. Long live Muntadar the shoe thrower!

Yup, history can be such a beautiful thing. :toast:

:loveya:

[Dangerously Amused]

40. Come on now. We all know the ONLY reason that man threw his shoe

...was because he didn't have any flowers. Why, those shoes were probably the nicest things that poor man owned, and he wanted to give them to Bush. Kind of like the Little Drummer Boy... pa rum pa pum pum...


Okay, I am making myself sick now, lol. /freeper