For or against Obama or George Bush, horror is the only way to describe what happened in Iraq yesterday. Bush tried to brush it off and turn it into a joke. Someone had thrown two shoes that whizzed within inches of his head, forcing him to duck. The entire incident was captured on video, which immediately showed up on news and video sites around the globe.
After the shoes were retrieved and the beat-down ended, the debate begin. Bush had been speaking at a press conference, appearing with the Iraqi Prime Minister in a small room filled mainly with Iraqi journalists. Many of them profusely apologized after the incident. But many of their newspapers and broadcast stations were recalcitrant, contending Bush deserved worse for his record as the commander in chief whose war and troops bombed and killed innocent civilians and destabilized a country. Protests and marches filled Baghdad streets, chanting insults against Bush while calling for the release of the journalist-shoe thrower.
The shoe thrower also hurled an epithet as he threw the first shoe. “This is a farewell kiss, you dog,” he yelled. Another dedication followed the second thrown shoe: “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iran,” he shouted in Arabic.
But I am horrified by the silence regarding an extreme and unacceptable lapse in presidential security. The shoes could have been a bomb, a gun, a grenade, a bio-warfare vial, a knife.
How was a man able to reach down and remove his shoes without being observed? How was he able to “reload” and pick up and throw a second shoe? Where the secret service or Iraqi security? The man was beaten after the fact; one report said he “cried like a woman,” but I am concerned about before the attack. What security measures were in place?
This ultimately embarrassing and harmlessly incident should throw the entire procedure for Presidential security into review/planning/training mode.
None of the early news accounts in the morning papers delve into the egregious security lapse that made possible this act of desperate humiliation. Despite Bush's jokes, it is no laughing matter; it is of grave concern. A threat on the President is a threat against each of us. Even if it missed Bush, that shoe hit me. It stung my pride in our strength, the way we carry our power. It revealed an absolutely unacceptable hole in the ranks. It mocked by its demonstration our loyalty and patriotism. It made America look weak. Those two shoes traveled through all of our vulnerabilities. They revealed all of the things that we must begin to fix, beginning with enhanced security for the President, at home and abroad.
If America fought the wrong war in Iraq, I certainly don't want the country, when it comes to the security of the President, to be again looking the wrong way. Our nation,or our President, should never have to duck for cover.
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