Bob McCarty Writes

Click image to view video.

“I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue,” said President George W. Bush following a June 2001 meeting during which he met for the first time with then-Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovenia.  “I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

President Bush was able to get a sense of an Egyptian man’s “sole” as Muntathar al Zaidi, a 29-year-old journalist employed by Cairo-based Baghdadiya Television threw one of his shoes, then another, at the American leader during a press conference in Baghdad yesterday (See video above).

After the incident, it prompted some in the liberal news media — including National Public Radio’s Ken Rudin — to do some “sole” searching of their own.  That searching, however, didn’t last long.  Instead, it resulted only in published portrayals of the incident as indicative of both a failed presidency and of the Arab world’s disdain for the American president and U.S. foreign policy in general.

I, on the other hand, view the incident quite differently:

• First, it gave the president an opportunity to show he’s still quick on his feet; and

• Second, it provided the world yet another glimpse into the collective mindset of the liberal news media who, in their reporting about the incident, were more than willing to clog the airwaves with biased commentary that showed the world what heels they really are.