They Threw Shoes, Not Roses

Our illustrious president got a shoe thrown at him at an Iraq press conference today. Two shoes, to be precise. This, in a country we had allegedly 'liberated' from oppression. This, from an Iraqi journalist who should be only too happy for the events that bestowed the right to be a journalist in his country. Yet said journalist was not happy at all. He decried the lost of Iraqi life that this 'liberation' brought. He railed against the making of widows and orphans. And Bush, in his supreme arrogance, could do nothing but stand there looking be wildered ,with an expression of confusion that said, "But we were only trying to help you."

The incidence revealed the underlying sense that there was something very wrong about our going into Iraq. Something was very 'dishonest' about the reasons for going in, and very underhanded about our remaining there for so long. As Americans, this is something that Bush is leaving behind for us to deal with. A legacy of disaster, as it were.

While the Bush team is busily trying to 'spin' history (and you can't spin history, you can only spin contemporaneous public opinion), we find ourselves still neck-deep in the very expensive debacle called Iraq. It is not a good feeling. It is not even a hopeful feeling. We will have to undo so much bad opinion across the globe, and this will take time--the kind of time people are required to spend to rebuild trust.

There are still those who lockstep along with the standard Republican line that says invading Iraq somehow made us safer. These people are now mostly ignored. But just a few weeks ago, Presidential Candidate McCain was carefully explaining why we had to stay there. And VP Candidate Palin was, too. They were actually 'selling' staying in Iraq to us.

It now seems bizarre.