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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff12152008.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff12152008.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#990000">December 15,
2008<br><br>
</font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>Finally, A
Journalist We Can Look Up To! <br><br>
<br>
</i></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">A
Hero of Our Time: Muntadar al-Zaidi
</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>By DAVE
LINDORFF <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">W</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>hen Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi heaved
his two shoes at the head of President George W. Bush during a press
conference in Baghdad, he did something that the White House press corps
should have done years ago.<br><br>
Al-Zaidi listened to Bush blather that the half-decade of war he had
initiated with the illegal invasion of Iraq had been “necessary for US
security, Iraqi stability (sic) and world peace” and something just
snapped. The television correspondent, who had been kidnapped and held
for a while last year by Shiite militants, pulled off a shoe and threw it
at Busha serious insult in Iraqi cultureand shouted “This is a farewell
kiss, you dog!” When the first shoe missed its target, he grabbed a
second shoe and heaved it too, causing the president to duck a second
time as al-Zaidi shouted, “This is from the widows, the orphans, and
those who were killed in Iraq!”<br><br>
I’ll admit, listening to Bush lie his way through eight years of press
conferences, while pre-selected reporters played along and pretended to
get his attention so they could ask questions which had been submitted
and vetted in advance, I have felt like throwing my shoes at the
television set.<br><br>
Al-Zaidi, who paid for his courageous act of protest by being brutally
beaten by security guards, is a hero of the profession. He stopped
taking the president’s BS and called him what he is: a murderer and a
criminal, with the blood of perhaps upwards of a million Iraqis on his
hands. Al-Zaidi used what was supposed to be a staged photo-op for the
president as an opportunity to speak up for those whose lives have been
ruined by this presidentthe ones our suck-up journalists routinely
ignore.<br><br>
I’m not suggesting that journalists should routinely leave presidential
press conferences in their stocking feet. We have different ways of
expressing our sentiments to people we feel have insulted our
intelligence than throwing shoes at them, but it would be nice to see a
journalist or two flip the president the bird when he lies so blatantly
to them. Or they could all get up and just walk out, leaving him standing
alone at the presidential lectern. <br><br>
It’s time for the press corps to stop treating presidents like
royalty. If he accomplished anything at all in eight years in
office, President Bush has demonstrated that, to the contrary, the
president is a very ordinaryand in his case a rather less than
ordinaryman. The office of president deserves no more respect than that
of the mayor of Detroit, or of Wasilla.<br><br>
My suggestion is that the press corps use the remaining five weeks of the
Bush administration to develop a new relationship with the presidencyone
in which they drop all the phony propriety and tradition and start acting
like boisterous newshounds of old, barking questions, laughing cruelly at
inane answers, demanding follow-ups when they are given the run-around,
and, where necessary, walking out, or perhaps tossing the occasional
shoe.<br><br>
The journalism profession was a full-blown disaster and an utter disgrace
during the Bush administration, and with all the crises facing the
country and the world, in part because of that failure on their part, we
cannot afford to have them continue that failure into the Obama
administration.<br><br>
With the Bush administration reduced to a running joke at this point, it
gives the journalism profession a chance to redeem itself by using these
few remaining weeks to establish a new tradition for presidential press
conferences and photo-opsone that can continue on into the new
presidency.<br><br>
Meanwhile, I’m suggesting that my alma mater, the Columbia University
Graduate School of Journalism, hire al=Zaidi to teach a class in press
conference journalism techniques. They should make it a multi-year
appointment, because if he left after just one year, his would be
difficult shoes to fill.<br><br>
NOTE: Speaking of shoes and the White House, Skip Mendler of Honesdale,
PA has a great idea. He suggests that everyone who is disgusted with the
outgoing Bush/Cheney administration send a shoe to the White House. Just
imagine a pile up of a million smelly old running shoes in the White
House mailroom! I think he's got something. Spread the word!<br><br>
<b>DAVE LINDORFF</b> is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006
and now in paperback). His work is available at
<a href="http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/">
www.thiscantbehappening.net</a><br><br>
<br><br>
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