Muntadhar al-Zaidi

Muntadhar al-Zaidi is a brave person. I've had some fun with the shoe throwing incident on this blog, but I spent some time thinking about it over the last couple of days and its actually an amazing thing he did.

I don't know how pre-meditated the incident was. He had to have known for sometime that he would be in the same room with Bush, and his detain for the man had obviously been present for some time. So, knowing that he would be sacrificing his job,freedom, and putting himself in the cross hairs himself, he choose to make the statement he felt had to be made.

When asked why he thought he had shoes thrown at his head, Bush suggested that the guy probably wanted to get on TV. That's unlikely since the guy is a TV reporter by trade. (As an aside: is there anything George Bush is worse at than self-reflection?)

So, what becomes of him after his release. He has been made a hero in much of the world. World leaders from Malaysia to South America and everywhere in between have praised his actions. You can't go back to reporting muggings after all that, can you? My prediction: after Bush is out of office, he is released quietly. Once he gets out, though, who knows? He's an international superstar now, maybe he'll got the Joe the Plumber(TM) route and get a publicist, book deal, and a recording contract.

If he's smart he'll run for office. Maybe he'll land an ambassadorship to the USA. Then we can realy hear what he has to say.