This incident brings to mind so many impressions. First, the Iraqi journalist has a good arm with admirable accuracy; some big-league teams could use a middle reliever that good. Second, I notice that al-Maliki actually reached out to deflect the second shoe; that Iraqi president didn’t cut and run from the threatening footgear, but daringly confronted it head on (or “foot on,” or “hand on”). Third, will presidential security now require that journalists who cover the White House go barefoot? Fourth, would those shoes have been able to get on an American airplane? Fifth, how come the security detail seemed so blasé about catching this perp? It seemed as though everyone was just standing around thinking, “Yeah, well, he’ll only be the president for a few more days, no big deal.”
Guess they were waiting for the other shoe to drop.
By the way, I’m available to appoint a senator from Illinois, with no trace of partisan allegiance or financial interest. I’m not even an Illinois resident. Problem solved.
Something to savor in the reporting that this fellow with the arm was an Iraqi television journalist – the unimaginability of any of our coiffed TV anchors doing anything of the sort suggests a degree of difference, of foreignness, that brings Iraq closer to me than all of the filtered term papers regurgitated by our embedded shod press.