Bush getting the boot, and the shoes.

Okay, I will admit the video of President Bush ducking shoes thrown by an Iraqi journalist was pretty darn funny. The President's response put the entire matter in its proper light.

"All I can report," Bush joked of the incident, "is a size 10."

When I first heard an angry journalist threw a shoe at President Bush, my first thought was, how did Keith Olbermann get that close to the President? I wonder if MSNBC will give this guy his own show when Chris Mathews runs for the Senate in Pennsylvania? One thing is for sure, no one is marking off the days until January 20th with more anticipation than President Bush. "Here are the keys Barack, the front door sticks a little, you have to jiggle the handle to open it, have a great Presidency, and good luck."

I wonder if anyone has bothered to contemplate what would have happened to the shoe-hurling reporter had it been Saddam Hussein at the podium instead of two democratically elected leaders. I wonder if Saddam’s lunatic sons would have raped Mrs. Shoe-Hurler before she too was executed. I wonder if his kids would have escaped a shallow grave outside of Baghdad. I guess he threw his shoes at the right guy. In a curious way, this is a sign of real progress. Shoe throwing aside, where else in the Arab world do democratically elected leaders hold open press conferences?

I am looking forward to watching the Bush haters go from full-blown attack mode to hunker-down defense mode as they make excuse after excuse for President Obama. You can be sure that no matter what happens in the next four years, anything good will be a direct and concrete result of President Barack Obama's leadership. Conversely, anything negative will be tied back to President Bush. The Obama supporters in the media, which is almost everyone, will be slow to respond to any wrongdoing or corruption in the Obama administration, while they have published every rumor of wrongdoing during the last eight years.

Is it fair? No, but if you want fair, go to the Olympics. Today, journalists seem to be more interested in getting their guy elected than objectively reporting the news. Reporters and editors have taken sides, and if you are not on their side, you go under the microscope. If they are behind you, you get the interviews with soft lighting and softer questions. That's life in the big leagues and if the media isn't on your side, you better have the ability to go around them and get your message directly to the American people.

So we can all laugh at the shoe jokes that are sure to come, I know I will, but a month from now the person who you have been told is the center of all evil in the know universe will take a quiet plane ride back to Texas. January 20th will come, and go. How long will it take the Bush haters to come to grips with the idea that he is gone, and they can’t just be against something any longer, they have to be for something. Now you have to defend every action and decision made by your President, both good and bad. You can look forward to the disappointment of watching the car wreck at the corner of political reality and good intentions.