Needlenose

The New York Times reports today on “the first day of the trial of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush at a news conference in Baghdad two months ago”:

As the journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, was escorted into the courtroom on Thursday morning, the crowd — family members, politicians, lawyers, even some Iraqi reporters — erupted into applause, shouting, weeping and ululating, drawing a rebuke from the judge.

That has to be awkward for the Maliki government — which, despite impertinent questions about how much the prime minister really minded the shoe toss, undoubtedly feels pressured obligated to punish al-Zaidi severely (the de riguer jailhouse beatings and other torture in the newly democratic and “free” Iraq notwithstanding).

Then again, this passage from the Associated Press account of yesterday’s events is intriguing:

The defense argued Thursday that the current charge is not applicable because Bush was not in Baghdad on an official visit, having arrived unannounced and without an invitation.

“The visit was not formal because Bush is an occupier and he was received by the commander of the U.S. Army and it was an undeclared visit,” lawyer Ghalib al-Rubaie said. . . .

Judge Abdul-Amir al-Rubaie recessed the trial until next month, saying the court needed time to ask the Iraqi Cabinet whether Bush’s visit was “formal or informal.”

Is this a serious legal question (which, if upheld, would give a whole new meaning to the term “casual day”)… or just a chance to look for a way out of sentencing a popular hero?  Either way, it’s hard not to sympathize with the shoe-thrower’s explanation of his motive while watching Shrubya’s self-congratulation during the press conference:

“I was seeing a whole country in calamity while Bush was giving a cold and spiritless smile,” al-Zeidi testified.

Yep.  We’ve all been there, haven’t we?

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

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 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.