Throwing Shoes at Bush Now an All-American Protest
Only one day left to make symbolic gestures at a lame duck! Echoing an Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at President Bush in Baghdad last month, protesters hurled footwear at Dubya in effigy this afternoon.
Jamilla El-Shafei, a Maine activist who previously organized actions outside the Bush family home in Kennebunkport, led 200 people in launching their shoes at an inflatable figure of George W. Bush in Washington, D.C.'s DuPont Circle neighborhood.
When Mutandar Al-Zaidi chucked his shoes at Bush, it was widely reported as a gesture of disdain culturally specific to the Arab world. Over the weekend, San Franciscans also staged a symbolic shoe-throwing event near the waterfront. Besides offering a nice visual coda to the Bush Administration, it should also put to rest the notion that shoe-throwing is somehow a friendly gesture in the rest of the world.
More photos from the protest, via Flickr and This Ain't Hell:
Update: One Bush protester took the idea a bit too literally! Fox News reports that a man has been arrested for throwing a shoe over the fence onto the White House lawn:
