The world has a new hero in the form of the journalist Muntazar Al-Zaidi whose claim to fame is hitting Bush with the shoe. The incident happened at night in our part of the world and by morning, the web was swarmed with games, blogs and emails with hilarious jokes which we all must have played, heard or seen.
In the entire story, the ‘shoe’ hit has gained loads of popularity which has turned the whole episode into a commercial act. There have been claims from various countries (Turkey, Syria, Iran etc.) cobblers that the shoes ware made by their company. But the one that stands out is the one made by Turkish company Baydan shoes whose owners declared the shoe was manufactured by them and was known as Model 271. Because of its recognition, it has been renamed as Bush Shoes or Bye-Bye Bush Shoes. And he also stated that the demand for then has skyrocketed so much that they had to hire 100 more workers to keep up with the demand.
I am not sure if Bush has the decency to feel ashamed at his ridicule even now, on his acts especially concerning the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. However, I do feel that the giving the story a commercial, profit-making touch is exploiting and undermining the bravado effort of the journalist. All in all, maybe we should feel proud that a single daring act had a large rippling effect resulting in people identifying with the journalist act, creating funds for his family, making games and most importantly condemning Bush and appraising Al-Zaidi.
Well done, Mr Murtaza Al-Zaidi. You did what everyone wanted to do but nobody had the guts to do it!
Random Ramblings 