Shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, a reporter with Cairo-based network Al Baghdadia Television, had experienced first-hand the brutal violence that consumed Iraq last year, reports the Washington Post:

Zaidi, colleagues said, was kidnapped by Shiite militiamen last year and was later released.

In an eyewitness account of the shoe-throwing incident, Modesto Bee reporter Adam Ashton reports that Bush and Maliki had just finished their speeches and were preparing to take...