Shoe Bomber Excercises Freedom To Bear Arms... Err.. Bare Feet

Loafer hurling reporter unwittingly highlights new Iraqi freedoms.

Muntazer al-Zaidi fired the shoe heard 'round the world Sunday. Bush was graceful in his dodge and response, The Iraqi government was embarrassed, and YouTube was enriched. The incident sparked protest over al-Zaidi's subsequent arrest, and provided fodder for countless columns, videos, and even games.

The reporter intended to insult our President, and in that corner of the world, he might have succeeded. But it can be argued that he succeeded, as well, in underscoring the tangible freedoms now enjoyed by the people of Iraq because of the leadership of the man he attacked.

Before Saddam Husein's ouster, Iraqi press conferences consisted of a madman telling a fearful press what to write. Who could forget Baghdad Bob denying the American military's presence, even as our shells whistled through the windows of his office in the Ministry of Information.

And in the face of incontrovertible evidence, the Iraqi press were too cowed to challenge him. Things are different now.

Not only does Iraq have a newly resurgent and hard-nosed press corps, they also have citizens willing to rally in the streets against their own government, which in the long run is a good thing.

True, the incident gave rise to some tongue-in-cheek commentary too witty to pass up, such as this passage from the American Spectator:

Bush acquitted himself well during the incident. He has crashed on his mountain bike a few times and choked on a pretzel, but even reluctant historians will have to acknowledge that his athletic side has proven helpful at several crucial moments during the war on terror. Before the eyes of the world, as Mark Steyn has written, he was able to throw out first pitches at baseball games effectively and now he has calmly dodged Zaidi's pair of shoes.

The Secret Service, however, looked pretty leaden. What happens to an agent who fails to take a shoe for the president? A kernel of a Clint Eastwood-style movie might be contained in this. Zaidi was screened, according to the Secret Service, but perhaps a more astute team would have looked into his eyes and seen his sole. That he managed to get two throws in, with only Maliki's hand to protect Bush, is astonishing.

Heretofore Helen Thomas and Adam Clymer had posed the greatest threats to Bush. But how could he have anticipated this burst of media bias? An administration famous for requiring passengers to take off shoes before boarding planes will now have to ask reporters to do the same before asking questions.

It is funny, but that humor is in stark contrast to what the story would have been had a reporter thrown a shoe at Saddam. That transgression would have resulted in the eradication of the home village of the reporter, not merely his arrest.

We have made progress over there, and the peoples of the world are better off for it.

Future administrations will enjoy a relationship with Iraq Bush couldn't have dreamed of, and history will judge him far better than the shoe bomber does.