Shoe insult against Bush resounds in Arab world - International Herald Tribune
BAGHDAD: A day after an Iraqi television journalist threw his shoes at President George W. Bush at a news conference here Sunday, his act of defiance toward the American commander in chief reverberated throughout Iraq and across the Arab world.
In Sadr City, the sprawling Baghdad suburb that has seen some of the most intense fighting between insurgents and U.S. soldiers since the 2003 invasion, thousands of people marched in his defense. In Syria, he was hailed as a hero. In Libya, he was given an award for courage.
Throughout much of the Arab world Monday, the shoe-throwing incident generated front-page headlines and continuing television news coverage. A thinly veiled glee could be discerned in much of the reporting, especially in the places where anti-American sentiment runs deepest.
Left unmentioned is that Bush created the system in Iraq in which it was possible for this dumbass to heave his shoes in the first place.
On the other hand, this open, democratic society was supposed to win the hearts and minds of the Arab world, and it doesn’t really seem to be doing much of that.
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No surprise about any of this. Not that it happened, not there was the reaction around the world to it, nothing. For that matter, most here see Bush’s restraint and humor as what you would expect from an adult when dealing with an unruly child who calls you doody head, repeatedly.
I think this continued, grownup reaction from Americans in general, is what pisses off the rest of the world more than anything else.
Let’s face it. Children want the adult’s attention. If the adult tolerates their tantrums, it underscores the essential powerlessness of the child. If the adult whacks the child, the child learns where the limits are - and in their mind is somehow on the same level as the adult because they got them to react in some fashion other than tolerant amusement.
Does this mean we should be spanking a few bottoms, figuratively speaking? Yes, but they have to be the right bottoms - and you have to keep in mind that with some children even that is no good.