Sez here,
According to unconfirmed newspaper reports, the former coach of the Iraqi national football team, Adnan Hamad, has offered $100,000 (£65,000) for the shoes, while a Saudi citizen has apparently offered $10m (£6.5m).”
Maybe I should gather up my remaining resources and open a chain of shoe-pitches with cardboard Dubyas as targets, hmm? Make me enough to share with Bernie Madoff’s marks . . .
And in this democracy Bush Co has created, it appears that the shoe thrower has been beaten while in custody and suffering some broken bones. Some free speech, huh?
GlitterGirl, if Sadam was in power they would have taken him to the roof of the building, thrown him off, and, had he survived the fall, beheaded him.
No, I don’t approve of them beating him, but why can’t people like you admit how far that country has come?
And in case you missed it, which you probably did, Fox News went to the home of the shoe thrower, where on the wall was a poster of cold-blooded killer Che Guevara. So that’s his philosophy of government.
There is a functioning democracy in an Islamic country in the Middle East. That is a major step toward world peace.
A Che Guevara poster? Clearly a long haired hippie type pinko fag. I bet he has a commie flag tacked up in his garage.
oh mardi GRAS will be rough this year with all those shoes flying around!
Dese ones.
uh, i’d count him lucky to survive this experience with only some broken bones under the circumstances. Swiftly restraining someone is a violent process.
I’d assumed I was hearing the sound of “shoe thrower being tasered” on the video, which is unpretty (and is what would have happened to him here).
Observer, I think the Che poster an interesting detail but I’m not sure ownership those posters necessarily represents a philosophical statement that can be coherently understood. Pretty silly.
Lets envision the following scenario: Obama is speaking to a group of reporters a year or two from now, and a reporter from the audience throws two shoes at him, neither of which hit Obama. What do some of you think the punishment would be here in the US? For starters, I am thinking of an assault crime, and the fact that the victim was a federal official, the president of the US, would likely trigger some type of enhancement of the penalty for this crime. There very likely could be some type of hate crime triggered by this act as well. Any others?
And the punishment for this crime? For starters, no doubt the reporter would be fired from his/her job. And for the criminal convictions, probably at least 3-5 years in a federal prison, along with a hefty monetary fine.
And if this happened, I doubt that any of you here would be lauding the shoe thrower as any type of hero, regardless of the circumstances in the country at the time.
Free speech is one thing. An assault upon the president of the US is quite another. The disrespect to the President and the US shown by the shoe thrower, and those expressing public support for the act, are disturbing to me and are really causing my heart to harden against these people in Iraq, and all throughout the middle east as well. Our country, and particularly our fine military men and women, have shed blood in part for these folks’ freedom. There is a part of me that really wants to part ways with these folks for good, in every way —-no more aid of any kind —-no trade —nothing. Then there is part of me that, despite these actions, knows that there are many who deplore the action and are indeed very grateful for all that has been done by our country and military to help them. But these types of incidents tend to cause that first part of me to take over and lash out. I’m trying very hard not to succumb.
afotl: we’re laughing to keep from cryin’ I guess. It breaks my heart that W has brought such disdain on our beloved country. I wish an American reporter had thrown a shoe at him years ago. Btw, Bush is the one who said it was free speech.