On The Media

Funny, last time a guy embarrassed a big time politician like this the press was all over the poor guy. Who was he? Who's he voting for? Does he owe child support or taxes? He is licensed to practice his trade?

But I suppose there is a different standard between a plumber from Ohio and a former Mahdi militia man from Iraq.

Bob, I sort of take your point. On the other hand, wouldn't it have been worth mentioning that in the pre-invasion era, no opposition journalist would have been allowed into the same room with the leader of Iraq? In fact, no opposition journalist would have been allowed to exist.

I was ready to launch into a spirited defense of the Pres, but that's hardly the point. Which side has the slimiest, snarkiest use of logic, history, and language? Not us conservatives. Read the liberal blogs. "Bob" is just another sad example of the depths to which liberals now sink. I would quote those lines from Yeats' Second Coming to you--not the lines you are thinking of, about the worst having a passionate intensity, but the ones that follow. Don't you, "Bob", suspect that you are hastening the hour of the next rough beast?

Shame.

Sometimes a shoe is just a shoe. This incident is already forgotten, especially with Camelot re-establishing itself.

OTM's coverage of this incident was typically glib and minimizing, just what one would expect with sponsorship by the Ford Foundation and on a network whose president used to work for Radio Free Europe, a US government propaganda outlet.

Blatantly omitted was the shoe-throwers voiced justification-

"This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq..."

Over 1,250,000 Iraqi dead due to the US invasion.

Millions turned into refugees.

There was nothing funny about this incident and people around the world cheered this brave man's indictment of a war criminal, George W. Bush.

"..Iraqi discontent..."??!!

OTM actually wrote that. I rest my case.

Hey, Jack, they are charging money to throw shoes at Gov. Blog's photo in Chicago, so I don't think it is forgotten there!

Mr. Switky, I am glad you, at least, remind us the motives behind this brave man's act. While it is true that Saddam would have had far more reaction to such an insult, he knew he was still taking his life in his shod hands.

As one who prefers speech (I yelled "Geronimo!" at this President's father during his Yale Commencement address, when he called most favored nation trading status for China an act of political courage - lead paint on toys anyone?) rather than even this sort of mildly violent act, I can't say I endorse his act, but I far prefer it to John Hinckley ripping off the plot of one of my radio plays as his scenario for "protesting" Reagan.

I've always been meaning to point out to This American Life that there are alternatives to the way the idiot they had on handled his verbal assault on Bush '41. Maybe they read the comments here.

I hope someone does.

Josh, did you actually HEAR Bob's commentary? He agrees with you. When the President said he didn't know why the journalist hurled his shoes, Bob expressed deep frustration, to wit:

GARFIELD: "He doesn't know. Exactly. Here was George Bush for one last photo-op in what he sees as a fertile crescent of Arab democracy and what most Iraqis see as the ruins of their society. As if to underline the very self-delusion and denial that so infuriated his attacker, the President depicted the incident as an illustrious emblem of freedom."

Bob didn't need to recite stats about Iraqi loss and death, the phrase "ruins of his society," sums it up loud and clear. Bob did not think it was funny in the least. No one who really listened could have missed it.

@pete,

Horsehocky! For every loose cannon you can show me on the left, I can show you five on the right. For every inflammatory comment you find on a left-wing blog, I can find one five times as inflammatory from the right-wing media. I suppose you don't spend much time on right wing blogs seeing as how almost none of them accept comments. Good thing this one does, huh. You can actually air your ill-considered opinions freely! how Democratic!

This may have been my favorite commentary of Bob's so far. Beyond illegal wiretapping, but including torture, the crime of unjustified war is unsurpassed. More people need to point to this, and to the President's seemingly willful ignorance, and I'm grateful Garfield did both.

If the Iraqi people had wanted to lose approximately a million people and have four million displaced, most of them would have risen up against Saddam themselves. (Actually, when some of them did, with our encouragement, we deserted them, didn't we.)

They wouldn't, or couldn't, so we did it for them (albeit it at quite a price to ourselves). We deserve congratulations and gratitude for that?

You lost four relatives, but you can throw a shoe without getting the death penalty, so thank us? Put yourself in their shoes, please.

Violence cannot ever be justified. The US invasion into Irak was-again- the proclamation of how American governments will always consider themselves as the world's police that do not give a damn about international law, UN and not to mention human beings that live in Bagdad like you and me.

The journalist's act was brave and desperate. He will never be forgotten.