Muntazer al-Zaidi of Al-Baghdadia television is cooling off his heels in a Baghdad prison for ‘shoe-ing off’ a Presidential attempt to resurrect a hugely unpopular image in the Arab world. The little known reporter’s bizarre ‘feat’ catapult him to the status of a national hero a day after the incident.
Zaidi threw a pair of shoes at US President George Bush during a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday, terming his action, “a farewell kiss to a dog,” employing two of the worst insults in the Arab culture.
President Bush was on a ‘surprise’ trip to the Iraq, a country where he is hugely unpopular for ordering a 2003 invasion.
The salvo, shot by Zaidi, failed to find the intended target, as Bush ducked out of the way of the first shoe while the other missed target.
The hack was immediately taken into custody and frogmarched out of the room and into detention, where he remains at the time of filing this report, as judicial officials mulled whether to charge him for assault.
Zaidi, according to CNN was also subjected to a drug and alcohol test to ascertain his state of mind.
Thousands of Iraqis, armed with shoes and placards demonstrating support for the action, called for an immediate release of Zaidi and withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in Sadr City - the venue of several bloody battles between Iraqi groups and American troops and Zaidi’s hometown.
In Najaf, several hundred people gathered on a central square to protest President Bush’s Sunday visit to Iraq, and demonstrators threw their shoes at a passing American military convoy, reports New York Times.
Despite the tensions writ large on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s face - as he witnessed the incident, and the ignominy caused to President Bush, the episode sent Iraq into peels of laughter as gleeful Arabs viewed it as a symbolic blow against someone they hold responsible for devastating wars in the Muslim world that have cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
On his part, Bush tried to see the funny side of the incident. "I didn't know what the guy said, but I saw his sole," he remarked.
The humour was lost on Iraqis as nearly 130,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, but a recent agreement between Washington and Baghdad calls for American combat units to be out of Iraqi cities next June and to leave the country entirely by the end of 2011.
Zaidi threw a pair of shoes at US President George Bush during a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday, terming his action, “a farewell kiss to a dog,” employing two of the worst insults in the Arab culture.
President Bush was on a ‘surprise’ trip to the Iraq, a country where he is hugely unpopular for ordering a 2003 invasion.
The salvo, shot by Zaidi, failed to find the intended target, as Bush ducked out of the way of the first shoe while the other missed target.
The hack was immediately taken into custody and frogmarched out of the room and into detention, where he remains at the time of filing this report, as judicial officials mulled whether to charge him for assault.
Zaidi, according to CNN was also subjected to a drug and alcohol test to ascertain his state of mind.
Thousands of Iraqis, armed with shoes and placards demonstrating support for the action, called for an immediate release of Zaidi and withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in Sadr City - the venue of several bloody battles between Iraqi groups and American troops and Zaidi’s hometown.
In Najaf, several hundred people gathered on a central square to protest President Bush’s Sunday visit to Iraq, and demonstrators threw their shoes at a passing American military convoy, reports New York Times.
Despite the tensions writ large on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s face - as he witnessed the incident, and the ignominy caused to President Bush, the episode sent Iraq into peels of laughter as gleeful Arabs viewed it as a symbolic blow against someone they hold responsible for devastating wars in the Muslim world that have cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
On his part, Bush tried to see the funny side of the incident. "I didn't know what the guy said, but I saw his sole," he remarked.
The humour was lost on Iraqis as nearly 130,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, but a recent agreement between Washington and Baghdad calls for American combat units to be out of Iraqi cities next June and to leave the country entirely by the end of 2011.
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