Journalist Who Threw Shoes at George W. Bush Running for Office in Iraq

It’s obvious that 2008 is a wildly different era than 2018, but it’s truly mind-blowing just how much has changed. In 2008, Kanye West still thought George W. Bush didn’t care about black people. In 2018, Kanye supports Donald Trump, who thinks Nazis are “very fine people.”

With that said, Bush, the president in 2008, wasn’t exactly widely beloved. Who could forget that classic press conference when a journalist literally threw his shoes at Bush? (Related: remember when that used to be the biggest political scandal for literal weeks?)

That journalist, Muntazar al-Zaidi is now running for Iraq’s Council of Representatives, comparable to the U.S. House of Representatives, Vice News reports. 

During a perfunctory press conference with Iraq’s prime minister, Zaidi threw both of his size 10 shoes at Bush. “This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog,” Zaidi yelled in Arabic as he threw his shoes. “This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq.”

Zaidi was arrested after his outburst, even though he narrowly missed hitting the president. According to Zaidi’s brother, though, he was expecting to the shot by the Secret Service. “He expected that, and he was not afraid to die,” his brother told The Guardian in 2009. 

Zaidi spent nine months in jail, but upon his release, he enjoyed a kind of hero status in the country. The image of Bush ducking from Zaidi’s shoes was painted on walls and printed on T-shirts across the region.