Does President Bush Deserve a Shoe in the Face?

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I don't know about deserve so much as... could use some more.

Why?
I saw a man who was brave enough to carry out an act to show that he was not going to feign respect for a man who by his words and actions deserves nothing but contempt. Muntadhar al-Zaiydi took his life in his hands to show his contempt when others around him were delivering undeserved politeness

The president of the USA stands forth as a representative of US policy. If disagreement to that policy is sufficient to prompt a basically harmless gesture I wonder how that president can agree to that violent suppression of free speech. A president who behaves as Bush did dishonors the entire nation.

At the very least, yes.

True style would have been to catch it and whip it back at the guy.

Not in my book. The shoe-thrower has earned himself my respect, which is more than Bush could have done in a million years!

I fail to see how being president of the US makes Bush any less of a dickwad. He cheated in the election, you know. Real honourable, not.

I'm going to get myself murdered for this, but why does everyone hate him? He did what he though was right through his presidency, and we blame him for it?

Just a few things:

9/11. You want a scary thought? Obama leading us through that. We'd all be dead in a week.

Iraq war: it was a mistake, but his intel said they had WMDs. Do you not act on that?

The economy. Bush tried to save the bloody economy, It was the Dems who F'd it up. The economy problems started with Clinton and his making housing affordable. Also, Fanny and Freddy going down? Yeah Bush tried to investigate them. 9 times. (argue with me on the other issues, but don't try to argue with me on this one. I know it inside and out by now.)

I agree that Bush gets more crap then he deserves. However I disagree that Obama would have botched handling 9/11, He'd invade Afghanistan right away, a war which he supports. Also the Dems aren't fully to blame for the economic crisis, the crisis is a result of miscalculations, blunders, and carelessness by no less then 10 distinct groups (including both the Bush and Clinton Administrations, Congress, and even homeowners)

"Does President Bush deserve a shoe in the face?"

He deserves a little worse than just a shoe in his face.

George Bush shoe-thrower 'too severely beaten' for court appearance

Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US president was not taken to court because it could 'trigger anger', alleges brother



The brother of an Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at George Bush claimed today that the television reporter was too badly beaten to appear in court, as the speaker of Iraq's parliament reportedly announced his resignation over the issue.

Dargham al-Zaidi said he was told a judge had been to see his younger brother, Muntazer, at the jail where he has been held since throwing his shoes at the US president during a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday. The television reporter – whose actions have made him a star in the Arab world – called Bush a "dog" and said he was angry at the US occupation of his country.

The family went to Baghdad's central criminal court expecting a hearing, Dhargham said, but were told the investigative judge had been to the prison and they should return in eight days. "That means my brother was severely beaten and they fear that his appearance could trigger anger at the court," he said.

Iraqi officials have denied that Muntazar, a 29-year-old reporter for the private Al-Baghdadia TV station, has been injured. Under Iraq's legal system a judge investigates an allegation before recommending whether to order a trial. Initial hearings are often conducted informally rather than in court.

According to Dargham, his brother suffered a broken arm and ribs, as well as injuries to an eye and a leg after being beaten by security officials, and was treated at the Ibn Sina hospital, in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. Dargham said he did not know whether the injuries happened when Muntazer was being overpowered at the press conference or later.

The journalist faces possible trial under a clause in the Iraqi penal code outlawing "aggression against a president". If convicted, he could be imprisoned for seven to 15 years. Dargham said he was told by the investigating judge that his brother "had co-operated well", but had no other details.

During a press conference marking Bush's farewell visit to Iraq as US president, Muntazer jumped up and shouted: "It is the farewell kiss, you dog". He threw both his shoes at the US leader – a severe insult in the Arab world.

Iraq's parliament erupted into chaos today as MPs debated Muntazer's continued detention. An official in the office of the speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, said he had resigned after the row, although it was not clear why this had happened.

The US state department said yesterday it would condemn "unnecessary force" used against Muntazer, but it did not know whether any had occurred.

Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino – who was sporting a bruise under her eye after being struck by a microphone stand during the melee – said the president held "no hard feelings" about the incident and accepted it was up to Iraq to decide on any punishment.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/de ... shoe-throw

Gina

I am glad obama won and bush is about to be out of office. Bush acted like a complete dictator during his time as presidency. I did try to give him a chance, be fair, and have the benefit of the doubt. He has messed up too many things and has made blatent lies too many times for anyone ever to trust him. In fact, our reason for being in iraq kept changing. Too this day, I really do not understand why we are in iraq.

The woodchipper stories were a complete fabrication and hardly anyone ever batted an eye to this. This man Eric Shinseki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Shinseki was our Army Chief of Staff and he is the won who said we can win the inital war but we would need 200,000 troops to keep the peace.

General Eric Shinseki, was basically railroaded out of there and the guy who was to replace him realized what was going to happen in iraq, which it did. The guy who was to replace Shinseki who really wanted Shinseki's post bad retired instead of taking the post. This guy did not want to be blamed for not if iraq would go wrong but when iraq would go wrong.

Bush and his cronies have a way to place the blame of their failings on other people, in otherwords find a patsy to take the fall. If anyone even remotely critized bush they were ostracized and villified in our media.

Colin Powell was f****d on too by the bush administration.

I don't have proof of this but I wouldn't be surprised if general petraeus was telling bush what he wanted to hear because he didn't want to end up like those who went against bush.

One piece of good news that did come out of this is obama made Shinseki the director of veterans affairs here.

Here is another thing bush did. He acted like this tough cowboy and told the terrorists "BRING IT ON." Guess what, they brought it on. Bush is a very arrogant man.

When Bush used to be the governor of Texas, one of our states, he did not think a mistake was made in anyone of our death row immates. Other governors had to put a moritorium on executions here because so many errors were made with the death row immates. There was reasonable doubt on some of the immates. On the other hand, bush thought the texas system was perfect. When the case files were asked for after immates were executed in texas the offical policy was to incinerate the evidence and the case files.

cubedemon

People hate him for a variety of reasons. He is an incompetent leader, a corrupt and unscrupulous politician (aren't they all?), and a moron. The fact that he is just outright stupid really rubs a lot of people, myself included, entirely the wrong way. I should not have to recognize an idiot as my leader. No one cares if he did what he "thought" was right, they care if he got good results, and he didn't.


Um... right. Except that there weren't even any other attempts at attacks immediately following 9/11, so it's hard to see how any more people would have gotten killed under any leader. And Bush didn't really do anything other than present a couple of jingoistic speeches someone else wrote for him, and oratorical skill is certainly one of Obama's strong points, so again it is hard to justify that we would have been worse off under Obama in such a situation.


Significant amounts of evidence suggest that the intel was deliberately fabricated, or at least that obvious problems with the intel, as well as a good deal going the other way, was completely ignored. What happened to it being a "slam dunk?" What happened to "there can be no doubt now that Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction?" Sorry, but our intel agencies are not *that* incompetent, no matter how badly they screw something up, this would pretty much be the worst failing of any intel agency in recorded history.


Um... yeah, we were doing pretty well under the Clinton administration. After 8 years, you can't say our problems are still all caused by something that evil Clinton did. Bush has adopted really crappy economic policies and we're seeing the results. The Dems f'd it up? How exactly did they do that when the Republicans have been in charge? Look, the economy seems generally to do better under Democrats than Republicans, and this is largely because the Republicans pander to fringe idiots like Laffer.

Supporting Bush on the basis of his economic record truly is a new one to me... I never knew people so misinformed really existed.

the problem with the modern age...yes there's more information but there's also more bad information and no one is really mentally prepared to be diligent enough to work on what they know and learn to filter out fallacious propaganda.

Orwell, I don't really support Bush, but I'm not willing to diss him so easily.
After 9/11, the Patriot Act, as much as everyone hated it, did it's job. It was the administration's surveillance that stop further attacks. (Or perhaps it was not. We can't really know now, but I'm betting that we stopped at least one attack before it started.) I really don't think Obama has the balls to do that. Besides, he'd just tell the terrorists "Oh, don't do that again. I'll tell you what, lets meet next week. How's that?" (Well at least according to his campaign policies. He's flipped his views on everything since he got elected. But that's another thread on another forum.)

As for economy, economic undercurrents last for decades. How well you are doing under on administration is not particularly reflective of their policy. And when I say the economy now, I mean it was the Clinton administration that started the mortgage crisis which started the economic down-fall. I know that for a fact. I will make no other claims about anything else regarding economy, because my eyes start to glaze over when I hear the word.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

- Ben Franklin


Quit being a wimp and pandering to the power-hungry government. True security starts at home....not watching Kitty Genovese die while waiting for the cops.

You can't say for certain what Obama will or will not do just yet as there is no precedent other than your own obvious bias.

As for Clinton blaming him for something that happened a decade after he left office is like blaming the manufacturer of your car when the engine blows up because you haven't put oil in it or had it serviced for a decade.

Clinton had the audacity to make housing affordable and combat homelessness.. oh the villain the humanity the horrible horrible man.

You really think Bush didn't rip up Clinton's economic plan instead of following through with the rest of it? He just tried to wing it and never understood what was being done or what still needed to be done so yes if you leave a kettle on the stove instead of taking it off when it is ready you start a fire (or at least ruin a good kettle).

As for the Administration's surveillance preventing further attacks.. why would the terrorists need to attack again when they were so successful before? They have enemies they can attack that are both closer to them and cheaper to go after. Attacks on the US are political statements that should only occur once a decade or so for full effect. If we were constantly being bombed the impact of each individual event would be reduced to near zero. So you attack once, let them panic and live in fear for a while till they start to relax then do it again when they least expect it (guerrilla warfare 101).