That shoe-wielding assailant

So this video is making the rounds. It’s a very simple story: Bush gets attacked by shoe-wielding journalist, Bush has unexpected ninja-like skills, liberals get cheap bipartisan cred for praising Bush on said skills.

It seems to me that we’re forgetting something – the nefarious shoe-wielding assailant is screaming by the end of the video. The New Times has more:

Mr. Maliki’s security agents jumped on the man, wrestled him to the floor and hustled him out of the room. They kicked him and beat him until “he was crying like a woman,” said Mohammed Taher, a reporter for Afaq, a television station owned by the Dawa Party, which is led by Mr. Maliki. Mr. Zaidi was then detained on unspecified charges.

Other Iraqi journalists in the front row apologized to Mr. Bush, who was uninjured and tried to brush off the incident by making a joke. “All I can report is it is a size 10,” he said, continuing to take questions and noting the apologies. He also called the incident a sign of democracy, saying, “That’s what people do in a free society, draw attention to themselves,” as the man’s screaming could be heard outside.

Beating the shit out of dissenting citizens. Truly, a hallmark of our enlightened democratic order.

update: free Muntadar!

Not only is it now a capital offense to harass foreign dignitaries, but it seems we’ve dispensed with the need for trials.
Does anyone know what happened to the guy next? Is he locked up in the next Abu Graib?

update2:
Rick Perlstein, a historian who I respect enormously, has a different take:

Liberals should not make light of or license the physical assault on the leader of a sovereign state, no matter how much he’s deservedly hated. This is not how we do politics, unless we’re in favor something tending toward anarchy, or fascism.

This seems open and shut to me: the Iraqi journalist should go to jail for a rather long time.

That makes sense. Still, he should go to court, not be tortured.

update 3:
And now he’s being prosecuted for “insulting the Iraqi state”. What progress!