Given the simple fact that George W. Bush has never gotten anything right, how in the world could I expect him to respond rationally in the shoe-throwing incident? The young Iraqi journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi (right), who threw a shoe at Bush during a news conference yesterday is now a national hero, given a medal by a Lybian official and roundly admired in the Arab world. In al-Zaidi's culture, the shoe represents something dirty and having one thrown at you is an insult equivalent to a good moon--maybe slightly worse, but not much.
It didn't have to be thus. Bush could simply have forgiven the man on the spot from the podium, asked that he be released, and sat for five minutes with him to see what was on his mind. Instead, we get a huge international incident, a new hero who will likely serve real jail time for being expaserated at the irrational behavior of a thoroughly irrational world "leader."
But could we possibly have expected anything less from Bush, whose term is--thank God--near its end? His destruction of our system, our constitution, our world will be with us for a very long time, but at least he'll be harmlessly cutting brush on his Texas spread, far from people and influence.
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