70% of all Americans and millions of people around the world disapprove of George W. Bush. He hijacked the American democratic process, manufactured an unnecessary and illegal war that killed thousands of innocent people while directly profiting high-ranking members of his government.
Despite all this (and everything else), he was popularly elected in 2004. He was never impeached. No charges were ever filed and no official investigation was ever undertaken. The people of San Francisco would not even vote to name a sewage plant after him!
Now, Team Bush is aggressively working to polish his legacy. He’s admitting mistakes, being reflective and acting more human. The spirit of hope and optimism inspired by Barack Obama has America looking forward, allowing W to duck out the back door with a pathetic, feigned dignity.
So Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw a couple of shoes at his face.
In doing so, al-Zaidi’s message of dissent has spread across the world, capturing headlines, inspiring movements and punctuating the narrative of Bush’s last days with a poetic, damning indictment that mere words could never approximate.
He may have dodged the shoes, but if we are to learn anything from the last eight years, George W. Bush cannot be allowed to dodge the judgment of history.
