Muntadar al-Zaidi

Appearing live in the D.C. studio of Fox News this morning, MRC President Brent Bozell talked with the "Fox & Friends" gang about the media's lack of concern about Caroline Kennedy's lack of experience in elected office [audio excerpt here]:

Caroline Kennedy, God love her, has zero public experience, and I'm putting every single one of my liberal friends out there who spent the last four months trashing Sarah Palin, I'm putting them on notice that they better have something to say about this woman.

Bozell noted that some Democrats in New York have raised concerns about assigning the Clinton Senate seat to Kennedy, but scoffed at media outlets acting as dutiful Kennedy stenographers:

Yesterday, Newsweek's daily Conventional Wisdom feature assigned a down-arrow to President Bush over Sunday's now-infamous shoe-throwing incident, wherein the outgoing President dodged two shoes chucked at him by an Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi. The flailing newsmagazine noted that al-Zaidi was "out of line," but was simply expressing the sentiments of many an Iraqi who wish they could "vote with their feet."

Today Newsweek continued to try to milk the incident for maximum Bush-bashing potential by assigning an up-arrow to al-Zaidi:

Shoe-thrower: Iraqis rally to support Bush's assailant, Libyan first daughter awards him a medal.

Nevermind that Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi would have been summarily executed had he even joked about throwing a shoe at then-Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein. To Newsweek, the "conventional wisdom" about Sunday's shoe-throwing incident merits a down-arrow for the outgoing U.S. president:

Bush: The shoe-hurling reporter was out of line. But many Iraqis shared the desire to vote with their feet.

Al-Zaidi is reported to have screamed at President Bush in Arabic, "This is a farewell kiss, you dog." It seems Newsweek approves of the sentiment.