The Shoe Heard 'Round The World

I almost couldn't believe my eyes when the story of an Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at our president hit the wires yesterday.

Perhaps inevitably, TPM reports that Muntadhar al-Zeidi is now so popular in Iraq that crowds are demonstrating for his release from custody, as presumably they too would like to throw things at George Bush. While I struggle to think of a context in which throwing your shoe at someone isn't rude, it is a mark of particular disrespect in Arab societies. Presumably, also, this raises questions about Presidential security, and musing on the potential convergence between the experience of boarding an airplane and interviewing the President is diverting.

There is a certain irony to the fact that, in his final weeks in office, President Bush has finally managed to find a way to unite much of the Middle East around a common cause.

*UPDATE* 17 December 2008
The NYT Opinion Page has stolen my headline! Durr!

No-Bid No Go

The New York Times reports that the no-bid Iraqi oil contracts for Western oil companies have been withdrawn. It always struck me as unbelievably absurd that this kind of shameless pandering to Western oil interests ever got as far as it did. It certainly wasn’t in the best interests of the Iraqi government to hand out their most valuable resource without competitive bidding.

Of course, under the Bush Administration, no-bid contracts seem to be the order of the day. I can’t think of a legitimate reason for a government to hand out a no-bid contract. That should be a red flag for corruption. I hope that the next congress will take some steps to stop the kind of abuses that the Bush Administration has practiced in this area – I’m look at you, Haliburton. Is there any reason why a government contract should be granted without a bidding process? Remind me again who was supposed to be the party of fiscal sanity?