Bush says he doesn't understand what the guy's "beef" is. Apparently having your country invaded, occupied and hundreds of thousands of your people blown up doesn't constitute having a valid reason to oppose the man responsible for it all.
The best, though, is Bush tossing aside the notion that the shoe thrower was expressing anger. In the Republican Fantasy World, no one knows what the guy was expressing when he launched both of his shoes directly at the Liberator's face. "I mean, how do we know what he’s expressing? Who — […] I’ve heard all kinds of stories." Yeah, I doubt anger and frustration had anything to do with it. He's probably one of those "haters" who doesn't live in "real America" and wants us to fail in Iraq. We'll never be able to decipher what his actions really meant. Whatever.
And how could I possibly leave this post without mentioning my friend Kent's view.
That visiting head of state, in fact, is responsible for the man being free to throw the shoes. That is democracy.No actually it's not. Democracy has nothing to do with someone being able to throw shoes. Liberty maybe, but democracy is anything but the ability to hurl your shoes at someone's face. Kent doesn't mention that the guy is still in jail without charges and has reportedly been beaten. That's not to infer the guy shouldn't have been arrested because he should have. I'm just saying democracy had nothing to do with it and neither is the incident proof of a Liberating spread of democracy to Iraq.
*Update: below the fold
Right wing nutjob and superhero, Bill O'Reilly, says had he been present he would have physically manhandled the Iraqi who threw his shoes at our Great Leader. O'Reilly is a common tough guy, macho man for the right wing. Despite sitting out the entirety of the Vietnam War even though he was of prime fighting age, O'Reilly has become a talking figure head of a very morally decrepit people. But we are supposed to believe that had he been present he would have fought. Too bad he wasn't present in Vietnam we could have really used his fighting skills.
**Update:
"No matter how you slice it, President Bush has protected the nation from attack since 9/11, he's been beyond generous in foreign aid, especially to Africa and Americans were prosperous for 3/4 of his time in office. Not a bad record at all."Talk about digging hard for the lowest common denominator. That's Kent still grasping to a world that doesn't exist. There were just as many al Qaeda terrorist attacks on American soil under Bill Clinton as George Bush. Does that mean we can now say Clinton is a great president because he kept us safe? Nope. Isn't it Obama who wants to increase foreign aid that has created such a ruckus amongst the right wing? When Obama talks about increasing foreign aid he isn't called generous, he's called a communist (here, here and here). And how in the world can anyone say Americans have been prosperous under Bush? Three quarters of the time is no where near true. Just like Hannity yelling and cheering that Bush created 10 million new jobs, even though it is utterly false, there's no concern for facts with the remaining 20% or so that still support the most failed presidency in American history.
