By MARC McDONALD

I'm not sure what the specific grievance was that motivated an Iraqi journalist to throw two shoes at George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad. Throwing shoes at someone is a considered a supreme insult in the Middle East.

But I do know this: if I could speak to that Iraqi journalist, I'd tell him that I share his contempt for Bush.

Indeed, I wish those shoes had hit Bush squarely in the middle of his smirking face.

After all, Bush now has only a few weeks left in office. Bush will leave the White House without ever having faced any consequences whatsoever for his reckless, illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq.

Throughout history, other world leaders have faced serious consequences for comparable crimes. They've faced international court tribunals. They've been tried in The Hague. They've gone to jail. In some cases, they've even faced the firing squad.

But thanks to the spineless, wimpy Democrats, Bush will apparently never face any consequences for the Iraq War, a $3 trillion fiasco that has resulted in the deaths of over 1 million men, women and children.

No, Bush will any face any consequences for the Iraq horror that he unleashed. He'll never be arrested. He'll never be tried. He'll never face justice.

Indeed (like all ex-presidents) Bush can look forward to a nice, cushy, lucrative career after the White House. Presidents generally land multi-million-dollar book deals (and thanks to ghost writers, they don't even have to bother to write their books).

And ex-presidents can generally command enormous multi-million-dollar fees on the lecture circuit. (Note that although most of America despises Bush, there are still plenty of Kool-Aid-drinking Bush cultists who will glad shell out money to hear him speak).

So like Jack the Ripper, Bush is a monster with blood on his hands who is going to get off scot-free and never face any repercussions for his crimes.

Like I said, the shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist speaks for a lot of us in his contempt for Bush.



Authors Bio: The creator of the progressive site, BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com, Marc McDonald is an award-winning journalist who worked for 15 years for several Texas newspapers, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, before he quit his day job and set up shop in cyberspace in 1995. McDonald's articles have appeared in a number of popular progressive Web sites, including OpEdNews.com, BuzzFlash.com, Crooks and Liars, Salon.com, Progressive Daily Beacon, The Neil Rogers Show and The Raw Story. McDonald's Web articles have also been featured and reviewed by various national and international media, including CNN Headline News, the BBC, the Washington Post, USA Today and many more.