The Iraqi journalist who chucked his shoes at President George W. Bush at a 2008 news conference in Baghdad is looking for a new job — the presidency of Iraq, a new report said Tuesday.
Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who at the time worked for Egypt-based al-Baghdadia television network, launched both of his shoes, one at a time, at Bush’s head during a farewell news conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in his palace in the Green Zone.
“This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog,” he yelled in Arabic at Bush as he tried to brain the president.
“This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq,” he shouted before he was tackled by the prime minister’s bodyguards.
The American president nimbly ducked both shoes, which sailed over his head.
“That was a size 10 shoe he threw at me, you may want to know,” Bush cracked at the time.
Zaidi was arrested and locked up for the attempted attack on a visiting head of state and spent nine months behind bars before he was released early for good behavior — and now wants to be president, BuzzFeed News reported.
The president is a largely ceremonial official who, according to the Iraqi constitution, “safeguards the commitment to the Constitution and the preservation of Iraq’s independence, sovereignty, unity, the security of its territories in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.” A maximum of two four-year terms keeps anyone from staying in place.
Fuad Masum currently occupies the office, but the next election is May 12.
Al-Zaidi, alas, won’t have his weaponized footwear to use on the campaign trail, the website reported, because they were destroyed by US and Iraqi security forces in 2008.