Kenneth Coles & Grassy Knolls: The Sole Assasination of a Bush Legacy
FINDING OBAMICA, VOL I.
"Shoe program, nigga! Twenty-three hour lockdown!"
Denzel Washington as Det. Alonzo Harris in the
2001 Warner Bros. film, Training Day .
I'm sorry. I was laughing. I was lol last week, when that shoe came flying at George Walker Bush in Iraq. This was the pith of his "People-All-Over-The-World-Join-Hands-Form-A-Love-Train-Magical-Mystery-Create-The-Legacy-Tour". The President's Exit: stage right. With the guilt-free grin of a man truly weightless in the zero-gravity of his seared conscience, the The-Fantast-Known-As-Bush-43 screened the sequel to his cinema de l'absurde, Mission Accomplished!, for a nervous audience of Iraqi journalists and politicos. The storyline was a boring retread: WMD had been recovered. Saddam was neutralized and Osama Bin Ladin was no longer a threat. Most importantly, Iraq was thriving with the democracy of life, liberty, and the pursuit of free trade.
All Hail...The Liberator?
Um...no. GWB's dadist theater didn't ring true to his listeners. One Iraqi journalist--29-year-old Muntader al-Zaidi -- even voiced his fatigue from taking cover from the shrapnel of Bush's exploding delusion. An exploding delusion which created the collateral damage of Iraq's slaughterhouse reality. This dude knew how to flip the script to read the writing on the wall. Iraq's economy was in ruins. The non-existent Weapons Of Mass Destruction had long ago dissolved into the leaky drainage of faulty intel. The trail of aborted U.N. fact-finding missions had tumbled into a rabbit-hole of disingenuous White House press briefings. Saddam Hussein's-strong-man-reign had evaporated into the virga of a scraggly peon trapped in a urine ditch. The dictator's removal created a power vacuum in the unstable region and was quickly filled with sectarian violence and terrorist opportunists. Worse but certainly not least, an estimated 655,000 Iraqi citizens had died, since the 2003 arrival of the coalition forces, according to the Washington Post .
So when al-Zaidi tossed his Kenneth Coles--actually, a Ducati Model 271, made by Ramazan Bayan, an Istanbul cobbler--I don't think he was buying President Bush's post-modern recast of himself as John Wayne in some Fordian war epic. Especially when Muntader al-Zaidi spewed in Arabic, "This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!" And as he tossed the second shoe, there was this lovely sentiment: "This is from the widows, and the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!"
Wow.
When I first saw the footage on MSNBC, for some twisted reason, I thought of Antoine Fuqua's 2001 masterpiece, "Training Day", and Denzel Washington's Oscar-winning portrayal of the corrupt L.A. Detective Alonzo Harris. In a pivotal scene from Act 3, Harris begins to realize that he is losing his feudal grip over his Blood gang member-minions in his urban kingdom, the Baldwin Village housing projects. When the gang members begin to revolt, Harris threatens them with jail time at Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit, a.k.a, The S.H.U. program:
"Shoe program, nigga! Twenty-three hour lockdown!"
Initially, that surrealist moment of Muntader al-Zaidi tossing that shoe was pure comedy: "S.H.U. Program"="Shoes thrown at President Bush during an internationally televised Program"? A Shoe Program? Get it?
Whatever. The mythic insanity of this footage became a comic goldmine for the ever-spinning news-cycle, and replicated on Leno-Letterman-O'Brien, The Daily Show, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. In one week, it has stimulated over 2 million views on You Tube.
There is a possibility that al-Zaidi may have watched a DVD of Training Day dubbed in Arabic, but his interpretation may have taken on a more somber and sober meaning. "Shu" in Arabic can be transliterated as "What?" Throwing a shoe at someone in Middle Eastern culture is also a truly demoralizing insult: dirt and manure are on the bottom of shoes. Tread carefully to your own subtext.
Watching President Bush--as he stood next to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki at the Green Zone press conference on Sunday night, 14 December, 2008--intone his fictional take on a country he dismantled, might've prompted al-Zaidi to ask, "What?!" as in, "How dare you?!" Or maybe he felt his tossed shoe was symbolic of Pelican Bay's S.H.U. program, and synced it with suffocation of his beloved country under the wartime lockdown instituted by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Or maybe I'm just projecting. However, I did read somewhere that Muntader al-Zaidi told someone before he went to the press conference, that he thought it was a good day to be a martyr, so maybe a 45 A.C.P. was replaced by a pair of Ducati 271's. His dream of being the sacrificial-lamb-du-jour was fulfilled, when al-Zaidi was heard screaming as Green Zone security gave him a bone-breaking beatdown. But what if he wasn't patted down and scanned before he entered that press conference? What if Muntader al-Zaidi had been allowed to follow through and live out his Lee Harvey Oswald? Would I be laughing now? Would you?
Though President Bush adroitly ducked the projectile, his legacy was most assuredly assassinated by a pair of oxfords. Those optics will be embedded into our recall for a long time. But, to quote he and the V.P., "So? So what?" Talk about gangsta?!! What?! Or should I say, "Shu?!" Shockingly, days after the shoe-throwing incident, Bush and Cheney are no longer in a state of denial. The Confetti Twins--"So" and "So What?", as they responded to ABC Correspondent Martha Raddatz's pointed questions in separate interviews, about the decision to go to war--are finally admitting that they would've invaded Iraq with or without the substantiated intelligence regarding WMD's. Cheney also recently confirmed his belief that waterboarding was a necessary tool for P.O.W. interrogations. George Walker Bush and Richard Cheney are two of the baddest gangsters that ever lived; bad enough to pound their chests atop the tallest skyscraper--named "We, The People"--in that once Shining City On a Hill. That same
King Kong ain't got nothing' on them!
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Barry: keep us laughing with your take on politics. In a Universe this amazing, it can't be this lame! Keep massively entertaining us with your blogs, and remember that every hour another McCain voter dies. God bless the youth.
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Thank you so much, brenner21, and I agree: GOD Bless the youth!
Muntader al-Zaidi was very brave to do what he did.
And his words make clear that he had an honorable grievance.
I thank him for doing exactly what Barry Michael Cooper said:
He attached an image to W. that no amount of media spin or history re-writing will ever be able to obscure. A deserved image.
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Those Ducati 271's jammed the gears on that "media spin" , Dane AZ. Thank you for your insight!
King Kong ain't got nothing on them is right. They both have to have a pretty big set to walk around with all those lives on the conscience however, I don't believe that either men have the ability to deal with reality. Cheney is especially cold and calculating and Bush is just the monkey at his disposal who has no ability to reason or say "No, I won't do that". Will these two ever be put away like the criminals they are? I don't know but I must say, If Obama wants to really engraciate himself to the american people hel'll get a posse together to go after these guys. Nothing says badazz more than going and getting the bad guys especially after what they have done to Iraq, the economy, Katrina victims, the justice dept, etc, etc, etc......
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I totally agree, fishgirl26.
".... I was lol last week, when that shoe came flying..."
are you so busy you cant type laughing out loud?
This is a column, not an IM session and lol is not a word.
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Very busy! Thank you for blowing up the spot with your spot-on insight, Mrdynamite!
I wonder where the shoe throwing reporter would be now if he hurled them at Saddam. The truth is, Iraqis are better off now than they were five years ago whether you like it or not. They're free of a brutal dictator and are now a new democracy in the middle east. History will be much kinder to Bush than all the naysayers are now. Even if democracy eventually fails there, George Bush believed he was doing the right thing and stuck with it.
Another thing I laughed at was when Palestinians elected Hamas in a free and democratic manner and showed what it really means to make their voices heard. I don't think the morons in the Republican administration of recent times could get their little brains around the result. What if Democracy in Iraq looked completely different than Bush planned, and much less useful? Would they have wanted to dismantle that? Have they tried? Would it be like installing the Shah as the leader of Iran? Or Pinochet in Chile? Got brutal regime?
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Wow. Very powerful insight, Chewbacca. The blowback from Iraq will be current of gale-force winds in America for a long time too come...
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I can see your point JEP57: I don't agree with it entirely, but I do agree
that history will have the last word. Thank you for your comment.
Linking this event to a Denzel Washington flick is one step away from numerology.
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Thank you for that "standing-eight-count-of-a-comment", Jack Dempsey!
Unfortunately, the shoe projectile could not wake Bush from his slumber. Bush said he did not know what the man's complaint was.
Bush and Cheney respond to serious questions like a twelve-year-old evading responsibity. "So" and "So what" are two of their favorite replies.
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Exactly realpolitic. Exactly. Both men are morally myopic and deaf...
Thanks and Merry Christmas!
Even if these guys get away without trials and I bet that wont happen, they cant lie to the big guy..I bet they will be with a lot of the 109th and 110th congress and a few newsmen too..Consequences.....I am glad I am not them..
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So true bayside, so true...
I have a closet full of shoes that I'd really like to toss....should we all send them to the White House prior to Jan 20?
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Um...good question treettracker. I was going to say Crawford, Tx, but I think GWB moved
to an exclusive cul de sac in Dallas? Hmmm....
Send those shoes to 10141 Daria Place, Dallas, TX 75229, though I bet the post office holds all mail to that house.
The Crawford, TX house was just another prop to further the Bush Legend. It supposedly gave him cred as a down-to-earth brush-clearin' Texas rancher instead of the Connecticut scion of a major international crime family.
I agree with the blogger that the shoe throwing video will help define the real Bush legacy.
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That comment was on point, pencilpusher! International crime family, that's hot: everytime
I see GFII, I always see GWB as the Fredo who was not murdered by his brother: "I'm your older brother, Jeb! I'm smart!"
Yes, I know. And his entire Presidency has been a front (for his base - "the haves and haves more") for multiple crimes, including stealing the treasury dry.
"Would I be laughing now? Would you?"
Yes... but somehow this works out even better. It's far better to watch GWB live the rest of his life as the biggest failure in the world.
I'd say it probably wouldn't bother him... but for a guy with an ego as big as his, it just very well may.
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That's an interesting point, jsgaetano...thank you.
There will be only one accountability moment for Junior. And we were privileged to witness that moment in the Green Zone. God bless Muntader al-Zaidi, Ramazan Bayan and you, Mr Cooper. All best holiday wishes.
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Thank you very much marignymitch, and a Blessed Christmas and Happy Holiday to you and yours, too!
Great post. Well written and entertaining. I smiled numerous times in agreement.
Thanks
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Thank you for the kind words, Amp43!
Excellent post...
apparently Bush/Cheney have decided that they have nothing to lose, and cannot be touched now that their term is dwindling down to the last few days... that they are home free, or safe...
their pugnacity and arrogance are repulsive, to say the least.
There has got to be a way to bring them to justice... words they have so easily rolled off their tongues, but please, God, can't it apply to them?
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Justice and truth are two boomerangs that never miss their targets, dessertsfirst. And...it ain't over 'til it's over...
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...and thanks for your kind words on my post, dessersfirst!
I suggest a Training day + Dog Day Afternoon remake, Training Dogs, as the ultimate Bush Legacy movie (about Abu Ghraib)
http://e-blogules.blogspot.com/2008/12/allahwoods-walk-of-shame.html
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Lol, great idea, stephanemot! I like that.
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