I mean … this story is just too incredible to not share. Over the weekend, lame duck president George W. Bush paid a surprise visit (his last) to Iraq and during a press conference there was assaulted by an Iraqi journalist who threw both of his shoes at the president’s head — narrowly missing him each time. Yelling out, “This is your farewell kiss, you dog!”, Muntadar al-Zeidi chucked his shoes at the president and shockingly NO Secret Service bodyguards were there to protect GWB. If it weren’t for his quick reflexes, he would’ve gotten beaned in the face. Here are a few screencaps from the “bizarre moment”:

President George W. Bush wrapped up a whirlwind trip to two war zones Monday that in many ways was a victory lap without a clear victory. A signature event occurred when an Iraqi reporter hurled two shoes at Bush, an incident the president called “a bizarre moment.” Bush visited the Iraqi capital just 37 days before he hands the war off to his successor, Barack Obama, who has pledged to end it. The president wanted to highlight a drop in violence and to celebrate a recent U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011. “The war is not over,” Bush said, but “it is decisively on its way to being won.” … But the president’s message on progress in the region was having trouble competing with the videotaped image of the angry Iraqi who hurled his shoes at Bush in a near-miss, shouting in Arabic, “This is your farewell kiss, you dog!” The reporter was later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt. In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam with their shoes after U.S. Marines toppled it to the ground following the 2003 invasion. Bush told reporters later that he didn’t think “you can take one guy throwing shoes and say this represents a broad movement in Iraq. You can try to do that if you want but I don’t think that would be accurate.” Reaction in Iraq was swift but mixed, with some condemning the act and others applauding it. Television news stations throughout Iraq repeatedly showed footage of the incident, and newspapers carried headline stories … Talking to a small group of reporters after the incident, Bush said, “I didn’t know what the guy said, but I saw his sole.” He told the reporters that “you were more concerned than I was. I was watching your faces.” “I’m pretty good at ducking, as most of you know,” Bush joked, adding quickly that “I’m talking about ducking your questions.”

To his credit, GWB really handled this insane sitch very well … at least he was funny about it. My favorite response from GWB when asked about this incident was in regards to the size of the shoes:

The man has a sense of humor, that’s for sure. After the jump, check out video of this entire incident …

I’m pretty confident that this is not the way that GWB wanted to be remembered by the Iraqi people on his last visit there as president but considering the way things turned out in his tenure, well … things have a funny way of working out. Again, I’m pretty appalled that the Secret Service were not there to protect the president. If the journalist had thrown something more substantial, GWB could’ve been injured. I’m very shocked that our president would be left this undefended. Here’s hoping they do a better job protecting President-elect Barack Obama.

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