Two thoughts on the Iraqi shoe sideshow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM3Z_Kskl_U
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/12/15/news/ML-Bush-Arab-Anger-Analysis.php
1) If Bush had said “who throws a shoe…” and gone into the Austin Powers routine, my laughter would likely have made me forget the disaster of the last eight years. It would have been that easy for Dubya. Luckily, he said something about the shoe being a size ten and I can carry on hating him.
2) This is yet another example of the complete incompetence of the Secret Service. You fly the President into a war zone. Everyone is waiting for something to happen. Al Qaeda killed Ahmad Shah Massoud by pretending to be a camera crew and setting off a bomb. The room is tiny. A guy stands up and moves toward the president while screaming. This would be a good time for someone to at least get in the guy’s line to the President. He throws what seems to be a shoe at the President. All right, guns drawn, we’re after him, right? What, you let him throw another shoe? At this point, three full seconds have passed, surely…wait, the first guy to make contact with him is another reporter (seated, in leather jacket)? NFL quarterbacks act more quickly. Well, except Kurt Warner…but seriously, that is some slow-ass reaction time.
