President Bush is in Baghdad today for a surprise visit to mark the finalizing of the Status of Forces Agreement, which governs the presence of American troops in Iraq going forward. One journalist at the press conference Bush held with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki decided to use the opportunity to express his feelings about Bush. Watch it below.
Bush stated in a recent interview that he wants his legacy to rest, in part, on the fact that he “liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace.” But let’s be real. There isn’t any glory in Bush’s legacy. There isn’t even dignity. The final image of our occupation of Iraq during the Bush Administration will be an Iraqi citizen making a small, futile, but enraged attempt to make a statement about his supposed “liberator.”
And, by the way, that man will never have to buy a drink in Baghdad again. Whenever he gets out of Gitmo, of course.
Monday Update: When I made a joke yesterday about this journalist (whose name is Muntadhar al-Zeidi, by the way) being a local hero and being tossed in Gitmo, I didn’t think I’d be right one day later. The headline from today’s Washington Post article on the subject: “Across Mideast, Arabs hail shoe-hurling journalist.” From the article:
Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Monday to demand the release of a reporter who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush, as Arabs across many parts of the Middle East hailed the journalist as a hero and praised his insult as a proper send-off to the unpopular U.S. president….
Journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who was kidnapped by militants last year, was being held by Iraqi security Monday and interrogated about whether anybody paid him to throw his shoes at Bush during a press conference the previous day in Baghdad, said an Iraqi official….
“Al-Zeidi is the man,” said 42-year-old Jordanian businessman Samer Tabalat. “He did what Arab leaders failed to do.”
