shoethrower Bush deflects shoe toss into a civics lesson

I know, I was thinking the same thing when those shoes came flying at George W. Bush during his Baghdad press conference.

Who let Rocky Anderson in?

But wait. That wasn't one of ours. That was one of theirs. The shoe thrower was a TV journalist from Egypt named Muntadhar al- Zeidi, a man who obviously shares Rocky's negative sentiment about America's involvement in Iraq.
I've shared that sentiment myself, but I've also tried to never lose sight of Bush's agenda to bring freedom to a land and people once oppressed by the dreaded dictator Saddam Hussein.
A month away from turning over the front door key to the White House to Barack Obama, this trip to Iraq was something of a victory tour for Bush, a way of showing how much relative peace and quiet $568 billion (the war's cost so far) buys these days. He had just finished his opening statement to the gathered media, talking about a timetable for troop withdrawal -- "A withdrawal that is possible because of the surge" -- when the shoes started flying.
"This is your farewell kiss, you dog!" al-Zeidi shouted in Arabic before he was tackled by Iraqi reporters.

Who would have thought that such an ugly, unpleasant incident would turn into Bush's finest hour?

Nothing was scripted. No one rehearsed anything. No one was prepped. There wasn't a Teleprompter in sight.
And there was George W. Bush acting like, well, like you'd hope the president of the United States of America would act.

He displayed terrific athleticism in dodging both shoes, he exhibited remarkable composure, and he calmly resumed the press conference without skipping a beat.
When the Secret Service "body man" finally appeared and made a move to wrap the president in a human shield -- as if it had just dawned on the Secret Service that they were in the middle of Iraq (new Secret Service motto: "We said we'd take a bullet; nobody ever said anything about a shoe.") -- Bush subtly waived him away. No way was he leaving Iraq cowed and covered.
"OK, everybody calm down for a minute," the president said. "And if you want some -- if you want the facts, it's a size 10 shoe that he threw."
Then as he assessed a room full of nervous laughter and building embarrassment, he added, "Thank you for your concern, do not worry about it. So what if a guy threw a shoe at me?"
A sea of calm in the country of his discontent.

This wasn't Lincoln, it wasn't Roosevelt, it sure wasn't Churchill. This was George W. Bush from Midland, Texas, and like him or love him, hate him or despise him, you have to admire the way he always -- always -- stuck by his guns.
The Iraqi war and subsequent peacekeeping occupation might have been the most debated, controversial and divisive military operation in American history, and George W. Bush might have parlayed that debate into becoming one of the least-liked presidents ever. But you never saw him waver, and you never saw him sweat.
Sunday in Baghdad he was all of that and more. "Bush at his best," is the way Peter Watkins describes it. Watkins is the Utahn who threw his clothes in his car, the ink on his degree from the University of Utah not yet dry, and drove across the country to stick his foot in the White House, unannounced, after Bush won his first term in 2000. Willing to work at first for free, in time Watkins became a significant Bush press operative. Among his duties was helping organize the president's White House "press opportunities."
"Most Americans only see him when he's using Teleprompters," says Watkins, who returned to Utah two years ago after almost six years in the Bush administration. "That's when he's at his worst, communication-wise."
He's at his best in unscripted moments, as transpired Sunday.
"I think in those types of moments you see who people really are," says Watkins. "What you saw is a man who's funny, who's quick and who is calm under fire. I mean you're in Iraq, you've got someone yelling at you in Arabic, you've got shoes coming at your head -- and he ducked, and he told everyone in the room to calm down."
Probably the most impressive part of all was when Bush used the incident's aftermath to deliver an impromptu civics lesson in a downtown Baghdad he couldn't have set foot in eight years ago.
"Let me talk about the guy throwing the shoe," he said to the assembled journalists. "That's what happens in free societies."

Says Watkins: "Can you imagine what would have happened to someone who threw a shoe at Saddam's head?"

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