Michael Graham has “The Shoe ‘Nuff Truth“:
Now that you’ve heard the Partisan Press cackle and misreport the Shoe-Flingin’ Iraqi “Journalist” story for 48 hours (did the press tell you, for example, he worked at a Pro-SADDAM newspaper in Egypt?), get the Natural Truth from military analyst and historian Ralph Peters:
If an Arab journalist had thrown his shoes at Saddam Hussein or one of his guests, the tosser would’ve been beaten, then tortured, then killed. Today’s Iraqi government is considering whether the man should be charged under the state’s democratically validated Constitution.
Bush won. Even if shoe-thrower Muntadar al-Zaidi (who works for an Egypt-based media outfit) walks out in his stocking feet and becomes a hero to dead-enders, he unwittingly showed what a great thing has been accomplished in Iraq.
Charles Krauthammer made a similar point on Fox News yesterday, noting that while the Arab and American media are gleefully reporting this one man’s actions as reflective of Iraq, the elected Iraqi parliament–which has to go home and answer to citizens–overwhelmingly passed the Bush-backed security plan that the president went to Iraq to sign.
Let the bad guys throw shoes, and let the US military win wars and help create democracies. I’ll take that deal any day.
Glenn Reynolds places the attack into context with another event that occurred near the start of President Bush’s administration.
(Via Kathy Shaidle, exploring the Zapruder film and going back and to the left wingtip.)
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