MSNBC Video

-Chuck, Vegetarian fanboy

i think the video sums up my feelings bout him also...

The video does prove however that Bush can move to the left when he has to.

Love the look on Bush's face after the first shoe is fired. Like "FUCK YEAH SOME ACTION"

That guy was a pretty good aim.

It was good aim but consider his ancestory. He's a stone-pegger from 100 ad.

How great would it be if that happened on American soil?.
The pink cloud of his brain vaporizing against the brilliant white of the camera flash. Money!

His brain should have been a pink mist no matter where he was.

breaking news - msnbc's "countdown with keith olbermann" hires shoeless iraqi foreign correspondent

Pretty understandable tbh. Somehow I doubt any of you would react differently, if the US was occupied.

Bloody hypocrisy.

redish wrote:

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His brain should have been a pink mist no matter where he was.

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For throwing a pair of shoes? Or for being Iraqi? Or maybe for being a journalist? All of the above? None of the above?

Keep it real!

Those shoes would make a nice exhibit for the Bush Presidential Library.

Too bad the journalist is a dude, not a chick. He'd have a nice career in porn with his attention whoring skills.

I 100% agree with redish and JimB...the secret service really fucked up on this one.

I heard that they knew no one in that room had any weapons on them at all. So for him to be able to throw the second show with the secret service no where to be seen might suggest they were first securing the outside of that room before going in. There were secret service inside but we don't know the whole reason yet as to why he was allowed to throw the second shoe. But they did say no one in that room had any weapons on them. So maybe securing the outside first was more of a priority. They could tell it was only shoes being thrown. But I was surprised that quicker action wasn't taken as much as I hate Bush. If that happened here to a foreign official, we would have to apologize till the cows came home. But I don't think anyone apologized yet to Bush.

I also heard nothing much will happen to that guy. He might get his press credentials pulled but nothing much else will happen.

In Iraq and Italy they said throwing shoes is the worst insult you can do because they're dirty and the closest to the ground. That's why after Saddam Hussein was captured, you saw many of the people in Iraq hitting pictures and statues of Saddam with their shoes.

I guess if they're smelly size 13's Bush could then claim he's been attacked by WMD's.

Mark - I guess I just always thought they were supposed to jump in front of the guy or something. Granted, it was only a shoe, but after the first one whizzed by, the secret service should have surrounded Bush.

I thought my boy Bush showed pretty good moves and some poise during that incident. Had he ducked behind the podium or been tackled and blanketed by secret service agents to sheild him from the "shoe attack" he would have been made fun of unmercifully.

He went a long way towards restoring his legacy when he stood up there bobbing and weaving- essentially saying to the world "come on give me your best shot! Is that all you got?" while wearing that Bush smirk.

It reminded me of Tony Montana at the end of Scarface.

My take:
The US Secret Service has had it with Bush. After 8 years of being constantly in the immediate proximity of an intellectual black hole, they were hoping for something like this. Sadly, the reporter missed...

Even if true, Secret Service agents live in such an insular world that I doubt they'd deliberately allow something to happen no matter how much they may loathe the man.

Agreed Zen..
Hopefully they are focusing on stepping it up for the next guy and W got the B team for his trip.

Did the guy get the shoe back?

I'm sure he got more than his shoes back.

Well GW will only get another 10 years to be under USSS "protectee" status....I guess he will then move back home in with daddy.

Congress passed legislation in 1994 stating that presidents elected to office after January 1, 1997 will receive Secret Service protection for 10 years after leaving office. Individuals elected to office prior to January 1, 1997 will continue to receive lifetime protection (Treasury Department Appropriations Act, 1995: Pub.L. 103-329).

Yes assuming that more qualified senior agents were watching over the PE and the rest of them were concentrating themselves on the current financial fraud crimes.

Bush is pretty good at dodging..put him in a bukkake and he will come out of it dry.

TUP: I think there might be an additional joke to dodging the ball..

It wasn't just any ball, it was a "Poké Ball".

(This might be the lamest post I have ever made.)

Conquistador, I choose you!

It was all a work. Where was Jeff Gannon?

I watched the original video again and just noticed the Iraqi president-or whoever the fuck is standing next to him do a nice Steve Bartman/Manny Ramirez impression with the second shoe.

This whole episode and thread has been one giant ray of sunshine. Good times.

Throwing shoes is hardly a well-known insult in the US. If some Arab threw shoes at me I'd assume he was the village idiot - Arabs usually throw dynamite.

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For you guys to call it a secret service 'failure' I'm curious what you'd suggest them to have done differently?

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Security is all about the perimeter. Usually that's the podium, and it's surrounded by bullet-proof glass, etc. It looks to me as though this time it was the walls of the room, i.e., once checked & cleared the reporters were allowed inside the perimeter.

al-Qaeda has successfully done assassinations in the past with agents posing a reporters at press conferences so I question the wisdom of letting this group inside the perimeter. On the other hand, really bad Secret-Service screwups are often the result of the president overriding their plans.

Planning to turn the guy's brain into pink mist is useless - suicides don't care. The goal has to be to prevent or stop the *first* attack. Whether or not the guy is even captured isn't the protective detail's problem: the *only* thing is stopping the attack, starting with the *first* attempt.

now I know why middle easterners dont like us....


its not because of all porn....but just the "foot fetish" and "shoe worship" concepts.

MSNBC, from the AP:

Court reduces sentence for Bush shoe-thrower

Jailed journalist's family says decision is 'a victory for the Iraqi people'

BAGHDAD - Iraq's highest court reduced the prison sentence Tuesday for an Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at former President George W. Bush from three years to one, a court spokesman said.

Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar, the spokesman, said the decision was taken because the journalist had no prior criminal history. The Federal Appeals Court ruled on the defense's appeal, which cited an Iraqi law stipulating a maximum sentence of two years for publicly insulting a visiting foreign leader.

The decision came as Barack Obama made his first official visit to Iraq as U.S. president.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi was sentenced to three years in March after pleading not guilty to a charge of assaulting a foreign leader. He described his action as a "natural response to the occupation."

The journalist's act during Bush's last visit to Iraq as president turned the 30-year-old reporter into a folk hero across the Arab world, where the former U.S. president is reviled for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Defense attorneys have long argued that al-Zeidi's act was an expression of freedom and not a crime.

'Integrity'
But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has had little sympathy for the journalist, saying the incident was more than just an insult. He described it as an assault on a visiting head of state.

Karim al-Shujairi, one of al-Zeidi's attorneys, said the appeal was filed about a week ago.

"We welcome this fair decision that shows the independence and the integrity of the Iraqi judiciary system," said another al-Zeidi's attorney, Yahya al-Ittabi.

Al-Zeidi has been in Iraqi custody since he hurled shoes at Bush during a joint news conference with al-Maliki in December 2008. He is expected to be released in December 2009, said al-Ittabi.

The news came as a surprise to al-Zeidi's family, who called it "a victory for the Iraqi people."

"We did not expect that my brother would be released before the three years," al-Zeidi's brother, Dargham, told the Associated Press.

-Chuck, Vegetarian fanboy