Like him or Hate him, Bush got Ninja skills!

He is Bush the Great White Ninja (pun on Beverly Hills Ninja).

Hello AD, 

I thought the whole thing was quite disrespectful. And I am especially unhappy at the Arab world's apparently gleeful response. 

I am wondering, though, how the US Secret Service is feeling right now.  Frankly, they should have taken the shoe.

Be well.

Let this be the first salvo in the new Islamic Offensive!  Shoes at 20 paces!

BTW, AD, there is something wrong with your last comment on MM's God thread.  See ya.

He certainly displayed more class than the idiot reporter.

Yes I too thought it was quite disrespectful.  I know a little about eastern culture and there is a much deeper meaning than using some object to throw. 

But besides that, you got to admit, Bush got ninja skills!

Yeah, so I'm being told but don't know I did or done to break it so that I can fix it.  I can see all the comments.

Take the shoe!  Take the shoe!

Today we are here to honor Special Agent On His Toes for taking the shoe meant for the president....hahahahaha

I think Bush shoulda kicked that guys ass.

I also wonder if that guy was somehow related to my grandma...she could hit me with a shoe from the other side of the house!

" I mean who throws a shoe?? Honestly..."

You'd be very unhappy with the Daily Kos, then.  The Arab world isn't half as gleeful as the kooks at DK.

Daiwa,

Clearly there are kooks all over the world and on all political sides.  Just as clearly, we are not the saviors Cheney and Rumsfeld thought we would be. Still, anyone who would cheer at such an affront to an American president needs some serious training in etiquette.

Be well.

Amen.

May you be well as well.

Gotta respect Dubya's reflexes! He moved pretty quick for an old guy. (and screw what the Arab world thinks.)

Then you seriously need to hire a few etiquette-teacher. *ahem*, sorry. More than a few.

(but first, if Bush really had been a Ninja, he would have caught the damn shoes and thrown them back at the attacker)

Headline of 7 Days (not a very reputable newspaper in Dubai): NATIONAL HERO

Headline of Gulf News (what is closest to a reputable paper in Dubai) : Shoe Attack Feeds Anti-Bush Rage

There is even an article in Financial Time (who's you can't deny respectability) about the fact that, while the attack was not the best way to do it, it expressed a general frustration of the Arab world toward the american president. But the message, like the shoe, passed way over Bush's head.

There is more to that shoe than a stupid journalist, and dismiss it as such would be quite sad, and dangerous. The reaction of the Arab world to the Shoethrower is clear: there is a clear resentment against what Bush represented.

He is a christian Ninja - you know, turn the other cheek.

As for the reaction, I guess you forgot the reaction after 9-11.  It is hardly Bush, it is what he represents.  Had it been Obama or Kerry, the reaction would have been the same.

Dont look for excuses to excuse the inexcusable.

So I guess 9/11 excuses the Iraqi invasion?

What a wonderful thing 9/11 was. It allowed the USA to do whatever they want, and be right about it.

Ironise what you want, Guy, but I am telling you that this shoe represent more than a deranged journalist in the Arab world. Everybody here see the guy as a national hero, for showing to Bush at least once what the Arab people thinks of him, because of the suffering he's caused.

True to form, the press is trumpeting unconfirmed reports of the shoe-thrower having been 'abused' in custody, that he has broken arms & ribs, and a cut to his face.  The horror.  All on the basis of his brother's uncorroborated claims.  None of them stop to realize, let alone remark on the fact, that 5 years ago, he'd already be dead, burned & his body strung up from a bridge in downtown Baghdad as a 'message'.

Yup...a "shoe in" for the job.

Yep...only under Saddam, you never would have heard of it. Guess a lotta folks over there aren't too fond of him.

At least he founf the "WMD"'s....can you imagine what Iraqui shoes smell like?

Just because he wasn't killed as he would have been under a prior regime, does not excuse abusing a prisoner under the current one.

Be well. 

How do we know that these injuries didn't occur during his warranted beat down?  Most of those who initiated the beat down looked like other reporters.  If the abuse came later I agree but that assumes that these injuries weren't sustained when the guy behind and others threw him to the floor near chairs.  

I am thankful that the President wasn't hit.

Especially with the possiblity that it could have been a shoe bomb?  Thankfully it wasn't.

I thought it was funny when Bush commented that he saw the sole of the attacker.

That doesn't follow at all.

From this incident follows that there are kooks in Arab countries and on the political left.

I am still wondering that the kooks didn't conclude that it was Israeli agents who beat him up in prison.

The media of course report that the single idiot reporter is a "national hero", while the dozens of reporters who disagreed with him are hardly mentioned at all.

I think it's a good sign.

That reporter is perhaps the first Arab folk hero in recent memory who did not blow up a mosque or synagogue or murdered a few young children.

Perhaps in 20 years the Arabs will celebrate normal people and then in 40 years or so actual heroes.

I'm not suggesting that it does.  I am suggesting that the Arab & American media 1) not accept uncorroborated allegations & trumpet them as if they were true, and 2) at least point out the difference between how this would have been handled in the old regime compared to the new one.  They seem only interested in adding fuel to a fire which may be based on false information.  The American media seem to love a bit too much reporting how much we are hated, as if the hatred is its own justification - doesn't matter whether the hatred is justified or not.