The emotional immaturity of the shoe thrower and his supporters

Times:

His new followers demanded that a statue be erected in his honour. He was hailed a hero by the thousands who marched yesterday to demand his release. His offending footwear – Size 10 loafers – have been deemed sacred by his faithful, who note that he has become a rare unifying force in Iraq.

Muntazer al-Zaidi, the television journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush during a press conference in Baghdad – and missed – remained in jail, however, where he can expect to spend the next two to fifteen years.

Thousands gathered in cities across the country, Sunni and Shia, to show solidarity with the Shoe Man. His deed – as well as hurling his footwear he yelled: “It is the farewell kiss, you dog” – was the talk of coffee shops across the Middle East. In the city of Najaf a man with a sword calling himself Haji stood on a roundabout during the morning rush hour and declared to a mostly Shia Muslim crowd: “The Shoe Man should have a statue built for him. Thousands of Iraqis have been martyred by the Americans. He avenged them.”

Demonstrators waved black banners with antiUS slogans and held up pictures of Hojatoleslam Moqtadr al-Sadr, the militant Shia cleric, while hundreds of passing cars honked their horns. One demonstrator told The Times: “We are here to congratulate the hero Muntazer for throwing his shoes at that low man, Bush. We want to tell Bush to leave Iraq before he kills more people.”

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Most people learn around the age of two that this kind of behavior is unacceptable. That the shoe man and some of his nutty supporters in Iraq never learned that lesson does not speak well for any of them nor does the logic of the shoe man who blames Bush for the actions of the enemy who deliberately targeted noncombatants while the US forces were trying to stop the mass murderers. The guy is just not very smart nor is anyone who supports this childish tantrum.