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 Shoes and Boos for Outgoing BushPosted on Dec 15, 2008
It’s hard to remember the time when George W. Bush winked and swaggered his way into the White House, while rival Al Gore’s team fretted that the vice president didn’t show enough folksy warmth or wear the right earth tones to win the day. My, how times have changed. Now, the 43rd president is setting records for low public approval ratings as he prepares to leave office, the two wars he presided over present new tragedies and challenges by the day, and Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter who beamed shoes at Bush’s head, is being championed as a hero in the very part of the world that Team Bush purportedly sought to liberate. (However, al-Zaidi’s memorable display of free expression landed him in jail.) Oh, and then we have Al Gore 2.0, who ended up using global warming instead of earthy hues to reinvent himself. We’d say that nobody would want to be in Bush’s shoes, but that would constitute yet another bad shoe pun, and there are plenty of those to go around as it is.
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By mendez, December 17, 2008 at 11:29 am #
Fadel, whatever the U.S. has been, is not part of some DNA or fixed in some way. I’ve been here almost seventy years and I will tell you, it will change. For those who think it won’t, just watch. It feels to me much like it did when I was a youngster, just before the Beatles and Rolling Stones and Woodstock and the summer of love. But the world needs to change and provide some leadership. Wars must end and children must be given a chance to rid the demons of denial that have held us down. But violence is not the answer, a shoe toss aside, and now is the time to give peace and Obama a chance and try to make sure he isn’t bulldozed over by a handful of greedy bastards.
Report thisBy hippy pam, December 17, 2008 at 11:20 am #
I will send a shoe also-Thanks for that address….....
Report thisBy ThnkUBush, December 17, 2008 at 10:57 am #
Thank you Mr. President.
Thank you for your extraordinary strength in ignoring the types of people on this site who have almost completely failed to pay attention to facts and reality.
Thank you, Sir, for everything! You can always hold your head up. History will judge you kindly.
Report thisBy ThnkUBush, December 17, 2008 at 10:55 am #
Fadel Abdallah,
Learn to live in the real world. You’re making yourself sick.
Report thisBy Fadel Abdallah, December 17, 2008 at 10:53 am #
By ThnkUBush, December 17 at 3:32 am #
Thank you President Bush for 7/12 years without an attack inside the U.S.. NOBODY thought that was possible.
Thank you for meaning what you say and saying what you mean.
Most of all thank you for your convictions and not giving a damn what people on sites like this think or say.
GREAT job Mr. President. Outstanding!!
Report this
================
I am not taking issue with your stupidity, for I know that both stupidity and shit happen!
I am taking issue with your state of denial that by supporting evil Bush you have so much blood on your hands; the blood of a million Iraqis and five thousands young Americans who were scarified at the alter of evil Bush and his gang of international terrorists, of which you are one.
You’re in your evil denial by forgetting the fact that 9/11 took place under his watch, nine months into his illegitimate presidency, and most likely it was an inside job to justify all the killing, evil and destruction which followed.
You and your hero and any one who supports this evil one are the scum of the earth!
Report thisBy ThnkUBush, December 17, 2008 at 10:33 am #
Fadel Abdallah,
Learn to live in the real world. You’ll be all the healthier for it.
Report thisBy Fadel Abdallah, December 17, 2008 at 10:17 am #
By ThnkUBush, December 17 at 3:32 am #
Thank you President Bush for 7/12 years without an attack inside the U.S.. NOBODY thought that was possible.
Thank you for meaning what you say and saying what you mean.
Most of all thank you for your convictions and not giving a damn what people on sites like this think or say.
GREAT job Mr. President. Outstanding!!
Report thisReport this
========================
Your one of the most stupid people who live in fantasy land and is in a state of denial, like the evil one you praise!
You’re mentally sick, and you do yourself a favor in going to seek treatment!
By ThnkUBush, December 17, 2008 at 8:32 am #
Thank you President Bush for 7/12 years without an attack inside the U.S.. NOBODY thought that was possible.
Thank you for meaning what you say and saying what you mean.
Most of all thank you for your convictions and not giving a damn what people on sites like this think or say.
GREAT job Mr. President. Outstanding!!
Report thisBy Trigger finger, December 16, 2008 at 8:31 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Wouldn’t you just know it, the one man in the entire country of IRAQ who dislikes bush, was able to get into that press conference and insult every last Iraqi press reporter! It would be nice if we all could see the world through your eyes, smily george.
Report thisBy Samson Babayan, December 16, 2008 at 7:11 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
A picture is worth a thousand words…..
Report thisBy Maani, December 16, 2008 at 4:11 pm #
Jaded Prole:
I love it! I think we really SHOULD do that, if only for its symbolic value! Would everyone here agree to mail a shoe to the White House? And would you be willing to start a “viral” email in this regard to people on your own lists?
For my part, I will mail my shoe today, and send an email to everyone on my political list to do the same.
Peace.
Report thisBy Persephone, December 16, 2008 at 2:32 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The throwing of the shoes at Bush is most befitting considering that the journalist shouted out “This is for the widows and orphans of Iraq.”
Report thisTake some shoes in your face Bush, for bringing a country to its knees.
By Eric L. Prentis, December 16, 2008 at 12:52 pm #
President Bush and the “thrown shoes insult,” a fitting epitaph to Bush’s eight dismal years in office which created economic, military, political, spiritual, constitutional, moral and social catastrophes.
Report thisBy Jaded Prole, December 16, 2008 at 11:41 am #
Now it’s OUR turn! Send your shoes to:
Report thisGeorge Bush
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500-0003
By Little Brother, December 16, 2008 at 11:32 am #
Well, I’m certainly rooting for the shoe-thrower.
But the unattributed copy in this piece is truly lame and tortuous—I’m not a great fan of Al Gore, but the anonymous writer could have made the point, such as it is, without lazily reaching into the dusty file of unsubstantiated and untrue anti-Gore campaign gossip.
Report thisBy Duane Campbell, December 16, 2008 at 2:18 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Sacramento DSA gives the Muntadar al-Zaidi award for Democratic journalism in 2008 to : Muntadar al-Zaidi
Iraqi television journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi stood up and shouted “this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” before hurling a shoe at Mr Bush which narrowly missed him.
With his second shoe, which the president also dodged, Mr Zaidi said: “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq.”
See it here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7782774.stm
President Bush ducks as the shoes are thrown
Mr Zaidi, a correspondent for Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya TV, was then wrestled to the ground by security personnel and hauled away.
Report this“If you want the facts, it’s a size 10 shoe that he threw,” Mr Bush joked afterwards.
Correspondents say showing the soles of shoes is a sign of contempt in Arab culture. Iraqis threw shoes and used them to beat Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad after he was overthrown in 2003.
By JimM, December 16, 2008 at 1:03 am #
Too bad Zaidiri missed! Might have knocked a tiny bit of sense into the criminal weasel’s head.
Maybe if he is tried and convicted of the high crimes and felonies he is guilty of, one of the conditions of his jail term could be that we the people get to chuck shoes at his asshole of a head.
I would scrounge up lots of shoes to chuck.
Jim M
Report thisBy DMcD, December 16, 2008 at 12:34 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!
Report thisBy Folktruther, December 16, 2008 at 12:27 am #
How to become an instant world hero to hundreds of milliions of people. By God, they better give him his shoes back or there’ll be hell to pay!
Report thisBy purplewolf, December 15, 2008 at 11:42 pm #
Saturday’s Flint Journal headlines: Eyes turn to Bush…administration vows to prevent “collapse”...and the next thing we hear, this coward and lying example of evil is off to his favorite haunt, Iraq, for yet another “Farewell” send off which has has been going on forever. Well, so much for America, he never did give a rip about us. He has been obsessed with war in Iraq since before he stole his first term in office, to hell with America and it’s survival, I have a Legacy to create! Rich friends and colleagues to make richer. Unions to break!
And what is more disgusting, the people of these countries don’t want him there either. Some people are too stupid to be insulted, this describes G.W. very well. So much for loyalty to one’s country.
FORGET THE FAREWELL SEND OFFS-THE ONLY ONE THAT MATTERS IS WHEN AND IF YOU GEORGE BUSH, FINALLY EVER DO LEAVE THE WHITE HOUSE, UNTIL THEN, NONE OF THIS COUNTS!
Report thisBy moni, December 15, 2008 at 11:34 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
G Dubya had to visit Iraq again to bid farewell to the country that he unilatteraly invaded. Having shoes thrown at him is nothing in comparison to all the American soldiers who stormed into Iraqi homes wearing their filthy boots.
In many cultures around the world, wearing shoes/boots into one’s home is the greatest insult and manifestation of uncouth behavior.
People of Eastern cultures remove their shoes upon entering a home or sacred space.
The ultimate insult is to wear shoes; carrying the dirt from outside, into the living space of cultured people.
For Americans not to grasp this most basic concept, must be completely baffling to the Iraqi people !
How tragic that the U.S. for all its Fulbright scholars didn’t “get” something so fundamental to another culture. Bush was completely unfazed by the gesture of having shoes thrown at him at a news conference.
Report thisHe did not grasp the symbolic act of having shoes thrown at him . . . he is incapable of such sensibility. He is the trigger-happy American cowboy that trudges in wearing his boots; tracking dirt in but oblivious to his own mess.
By HC, December 15, 2008 at 10:34 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Just how many servicemen’s boots, and how many civilians’ shoes, will forever remain unfilled by all those amputees resulting from what that b**tard has done? It’s probably too much to ask of the cosmos that an IED go off near the clown prince’s motorcade on the way to the airport, costing him a couple of limbs as a constant reminder of his time spent in Iraq, but it would be some measure of justice.
Report thisBy dogfishead, December 15, 2008 at 9:26 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The reporter that threw the shoes at Bush, displayed disgust at the person who bought the Americans to Iraq. It is symbolic of the anti-west and anti- American feeling rampant through out the middle east. Bush is only fooling himself about how the majority of the Iraq people feel. Now that reporter is an middle east Icon!
Report this