Reporter Attacks President Bush at Iraq Press Conference

An Iraqi journalist attacked President George W. Bush during a joint press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Television reporter Muntadar al-Zeidi jumped from his chair and threw his shoes one at a time at Bush's head just as Bush was about to shake hands with al-Maliki.

Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq over the weekend.

More from the AP:

"This is a farewell kiss, you dog," he yelled in Arabic. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

The crowd descended on al-Zeidi, who works for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt. He was wrestled to the ground by security officials and then hauled away, moaning as they departed the room. Later, a trail of fresh blood could be seen on the carpet, although the source was not known.

In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. When U.S. Marines toppled Saddam Hussein's statue on Firdos Square in 2003, the assembled crowd whacked it with their shoes."

Bush overthrows a country, kills over a million of their citizens, destroys their infrastructure, and somehow manages to fleece the U.S. taxpayers at the same time and the only lesson he learned was he needs to brush up on his shoe jokes?

When Bush met with reporters later aboard Air Force One, he had a joke prepared: "I didn't know what the guy said but I saw his `sole.'" Later, he said: "I'm going to be thinking of shoe jokes for a long time. I haven't heard any good ones yet."