Needlenose

As you can probably tell from the paucity of posts, it’s been a busy holiday season for this humble correspondent. I did, however, catch this passage in an Associated Press story yesterday about the postponed trial of Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at Dubya during a press conference in Baghdad:

. . . in the most telling sign of the changes that are sweeping over Iraq, Tuesday’s second anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s hanging went by almost unnoticed — a near-forgotten footnote in a war that has claimed the lives of more than 4,200 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

The anniversary was not even marked in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, where the insurgency quickly took hold after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Returning to the article’s main topic, the AP scribe (Patrick Quinn) then writes:

The trial of al-Zeidi was to begin Wednesday on charges of assaulting a foreign leader, which his defense team said carried a maximum sentence of 15 years. . . .

Last week, [Iraqi prime minister Nouri] al-Maliki sought to undermine the journalist’s popularity by saying he had confessed that the mastermind of the attack was a militant known for slitting his victims’ throats.

Al-Maliki said that in a letter of apology to him, al-Zeidi wrote that a known militant had induced him to throw the shoes. The alleged instigator has never been identified and neither al-Maliki nor any of his officials have provided a further explanation. The letter was not made public.

The journalist’s family denied the claim and alleged that al-Zeidi was tortured into writing the letter.

Guess it’s clear why there’s no reason to commemorate the death of Saddam.  His body may be out of power, but his spirit is thriving nicely.

Mohammed Hussein of the New York Times’ Baghdad bureau writes about the aftermath of this month’s famous shoe-throwing incident:

When traveling outside Iraq, I would sometimes hide my nationality by refraining from speaking in an Iraqi dialect. When Arabs would find out where I was from, I would be lectured about how Iraqis are too willing to accept the presence of American troops in our country. But after an Iraqi television reporter threw his shoes at President Bush during a news conference, other Arabs seem to have raised their opinions of us.

. . . “The Iraqi people are courageous people,” a taxi driver in Amman, Jordan, told me a few days ago. It was strange to hear this praise after hearing years of verbal abuse from Arabs in Jordan and Syria. When my uncle was shopping in the market in Amman recently he heard a voice yell: “Are you Iraqi?” In the past this would be followed by a speech about the war and the Americans. Instead the man yelled to my uncle: “You made us proud.”

As an Iraqi journalist, I’ve had a hard time understanding why Arab people are treating us with dignity now after this type of behavior. Throwing a shoe, especially at a guest, is a deep insult in our culture.

But many other Arabs don’t feel this way. In Amman, people would stop me and ask to hear more about the shoe throwing. “We heard the good news from Iraq,” a neighbor said. My Iraqi friends living in Syria and Lebanon say they have also all been praised.

. . . As an Iraqi, I am happy that our neighbors treat us with respect now. I just wish it was for something other than this. I wonder how our dignity could be so tenuous as to be linked to a pair of shoes.

I have nothing to add; just thought it was worth passing along.

Play the game!  Tip of the ‘Nose to Game Buddy.

Dubya checks what time it is.

From the Associated Press (via MSNBC):

President George W. Bush’s two terms in office have been marked by wars, a global financial crisis, and a steady stream of political opposition. But his official portrait, unveiled Friday at the National Portrait Gallery, shows him at ease and smiling, seemingly unfazed by eight years of tumult.

. . . Bush wanted painter Robert Anderson, a Yale classmate of the president’s, to give him a more informal look for his likeness at the National Portrait Gallery. Anderson painted the portrait to engage viewers with the president in a “personal and conversational manner,” according to an event program.

Isn’t it kind of curious that a president who was obsessed with presenting himself as a figure of unquestionable authority (a “war president,” the “decider,” endless self-references to being “commander-in-chief,” etc.) would suddenly decide to go casual for his official portrait?

Seems to me that the only times I’ve seen the Shrubster in shirtsleeves came when he was posing as engaged and working hard while touring the site of a natural disaster.  I guess maybe envisioning his legacy counts.

Watertiger, meanwhile, notes the special obstacle that the presidential artist had to overcome.

Dubya looks into an Iraqi reporter’s eyes and sees his sole.

(Via the Associated Press.)

Update:  Oops, I think watertiger won even before I posted this.

Via Think Progress, here’s one man speaking on behalf of two countries today at Dubya’s press conference during a “surprise” visit to Iraq:

According to news reports, the man shouted, “This is a farewell kiss, you dog!” as he threw his shoes at the Shrub-in-Chief.

From Reuters a week ago, via the New York Times: “President Bush in Lima, Peru, on Saturday for a meeting that is his last scheduled foreign trip.”

Could you imagine King George the Compassionate Conservative doing this?

Via AP:

In 2004, when asked about his flight-suit “Victory in Iraq” speech in front of the Mission Accomplished Banner, Shrubya said he had no regrets - “”Absolutely . . . You bet I’d do it again.”  Now a lame duck, apparently the regrets over the banner speech have caught up with him.  I thought Laura was even stoopider than Shrubya, but it turns out she is Marge to his Homer:

“I regret saying some things I shouldn’t have said,” Bush told CNN’s Heidi Collins when asked to reflect on his regrets over his two terms as president. “Like ‘dead or alive’ and ‘bring ‘em on.’ My wife reminded me that, hey, as president of the United States, be careful what you say.”

In one of the Shrubya/Kerry debates, didn’t Shrubya also issue some sort of blanket statement about how he didn’t regret anything he had done up until that point, or something like that?

Short of committing sepukku, there is very little that Shrubya could do that I would consider sufficient attonement for the hell he has unleashed on the world.  Fuck you asshole, I hope you choke on a pretzel or drown in your pool.