Sense from Seattle

Common sense thoughts on life and current affairs by a Seattle area sexagenarian, drawing on personal experience, years of learning as a counselor to thousands of families and an innate passion for informed knowledge, to uniquely express sensible, thoughtful, honest and independent views.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Shoeing Bush


The young Iraqi journalist who, sickened by what George W. Bush has done to Iraq and its people, hurled his ultimate cultural insult at Bush, has expressed the feelings not just of Iraqis, but of people worldwide. He has become a hero for his courageous act, and though he faces serious criminal charges, his defense fund will be enormous.

Bush was surprisingly quick in ducking the missiles, perhaps indicating he has been expecting to be a target for some time. His verbal reactions were typically Bush, giving no thought or attention to the motivation or reasoning of the launcher, but instinctively turning the incident into another ludicrous propaganda irony about bringing democracy to Iraq, and dismissing it with his sophomoric humor, "it was a size ten".

Reaction in the US seems to be amused satisfaction. This Iraqi did something many of us wish we could do, tell Bush by an insulting cultural gesture what we think of him. Some of us would do it because he has embroiled us in a needless and incompetent war. Some would do it because he has ruined our economy. Some would cite the damage he has done to our Constitutional system of government. Many of us would do it for all three reasons.

Bush deserves to be greeted with flung shoes wherever he goes from now to the time he is out of office. But if that is not done, at least we know we are near the final month of enduring him and are in the process of telling him "Shoo!"

When Bush pardons the huge groups of people who broke our laws under the direction of his Administration, as I expect he will be doing, he should simultaneously ask the Iraqi government to pardon the shoe thrower. It's the least he can do. And when it comes to doing the right thing, Bush has always done the least.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tom,
Well said. I especially enjoyed your play on the words "shoe" and "shoo".

You missed a chance to compare Bush's agility in ducking the shoes to his ducking responsibility for the chaos he has created in Iraq, his own political party, and his country.
John from Phoenix

8:07 PM  
Blogger Tom Blake said...

Ducking responsibility could be a subtitle for a Bush biography.

At least one commentator has pointed out that history will preserve the story of this shoe throwing, but particularly in the Islamic world, the fact that Bush ducked will be omitted.

7:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I read recently that about 40 shoes have been thrown on the White House lawn. I find that amusing, but I wonder what the sonsequences would be if someone were caught tossing a shoe on the White House lawn. A similar offense in Nazi Germany would have been punished by death. Would a US citizen have been charged with littering or something worse? I suspect that the littering charge is the worst that could happen. If so, a nation rooted in government by law is something to be proud of.
John from Phoenix

8:07 PM  
Blogger Tom Blake said...

Now that Bush has gone back to Texas, maybe people will throw cowboy boots at him, hopefully with spurs attached. As for the shoes thrown on the White House lawn, littering may indeed be the charge, with the defendant arguing it is constitutionally protected freedom of speech and expression.

2:06 PM  

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