I don't know you. We are unlikely to ever cross paths in a Publix, or the Buford Highway Walgreens, and, one surmises, a good Georgia Barbecue Pork sandwich is completely out of the question.
There is no question that there your motives for lofting those loafers were sound. One imagines that if our roles were reversed, the temptation would be difficult to suppress. There are quite a few Americans who would agree with why you hurled the huaraches.
And in that aspect, all persons concerned would be justified in a sneaker slider...but...here's the issue. Whether we like it or not, George W. Bush is the freely elected President of the United States, and will be for another five weeks. Picking a fight with him outside of the United States makes Americans pissy, even Americans who agree with you. It stops being an attack on a man you find despicable, and becomes an assault on the office and the people it serves.
For our friends on the Left, imagine the same thing directed at President-Elect Obama, by a journalist serving at the pleasure of a military dictator anywhere, while overseas, and feel your ire rise. One is free to his dislike for the officeholder, just do not disrespect the office.
Please do not think that we should hoist the presidency up on an ivory tower. It should be down on street level and able to respond swiftly and surely to assaults from all sides.
As for President Bush, what the hell were you thinking? You have five weeks, and a single digit approval rating, best recognized by the single digit raised by most Americans when you pass by or your picture shows up on the news. This is not a time to start gallivanting around the globe showing your ass while asserting your two drops of relevance as a world leader.
This is the time where you would be best advised to sit your fuzzy butt down in Washington or Dallas, stop costing us any more money, and shut the merry heck up. How much does one of these little overseas jaunts cost in the first blamed place? When you're running multi-trillion dollar defecits and got five fricking weeks left in the White House, STAY HOME!
Can you imagine what would have happened had that Iraqi journalist gotten something more serious than a shoe in that room? This is where you and the Left have a great overlap of agreement. Neither one of you wants a President Dick Cheney, which is precisely what could have happened.
The idea of President Dick Cheney, second shortest administration in history (Only William Henry Harrison's being shorter) because you got a wild hair up your torpedo tube to go to Iraq because you could, well, it annoys me. You deserve to be blessed out for it. When we, the people cannot afford Christmas gifts for our children, much less our mortgages, car payments, heating and light bills, or food, your trip is the posturing of an impotent, arrogant, redundant hack.
The really sad part is that there just is not enough time to impeach Bush. But can someone in Congress cut the funding for Air Force One so he has to carry his behind back to the United States and face the disaster he made in person? By the time he hits Washington, there is a good chance that his Cadillac Limo will be an orphan, i.e., a car whose manufacturer no longer exists.
It's easy to be annoyed at the Iraqi journalist. If he had behaved any more obnoxiously, he would now be Fred Goldman. But one at least understands the motivations behind his act.
Bush, on the other hand, should never have been in that situation in the first blessed place. He has enough people around him to know better. And if they are unwilling to say so, we, the American people, are.
One imagines, with great trepidation, approximately 130 million Nikes lining the telephone lines throughout greater Washington.
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