Perhaps foes of President Bush will be cheering for a good solid week at this image, but the flying footwear assault at a press conference with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki turned into a melee that was no laughing matter. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino got whacked in the face with a microphone as security tussled with Al-Baghdadia television (an Iraqi-owned station based in Egypt) correspondent Muntadar al-Zeidi. More from the New York Times:

“(Bush’s) appearance at a news conference here was interrupted by an Iraqi journalist who shouted in Arabic — ‘This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog’ — and threw one of his shoes at the president, who ducked and narrowly avoided being struck.


As chaos ensued, he threw his other shoe, shouting, ‘This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.’ The second shoe also narrowly missed Bush as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki stuck out a hand in front of the president’s face to help shield him.


A scrum of security agents descended on the man, who was about 12 feet from the lectern, and wrestled him to the floor and then out of the ornate room where the news conference was taking place. The president was uninjured and brushed off the incident. ‘All I can report is it is a size 10,’ he said jokingly before continuing his news conference and noting the apologies of Iraqi journalists in the front row.”

Shoe throwing/hitting doesn’t have the same impact for us in the West as it does the Arab world. Remember when the Saddam statue came down, and Iraqis chased after the head in order to smack in with their soles in a sign of contempt.