Muntadhar al-Zeidi, a 28-year-old unmarried Shiite reporter from a minor TV station, hurled a pair of shoes at President Bush to protest the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” he said as he threw the first shoe. “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” he shouted as he hurled the second. An agile Bush ducked both shoes and smiled in an amused way during the incident. “So what if the guy threw his shoe at me?” Bush commented. “I didn’t feel the least bit threatened by it. . . .[T]hat’s what happens in free societies where people try to draw attention to themselves.” Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki showed no promise as a defensive back. The incident joins the thwarting of the Shoe Bomber, the discovery of Imelda Marcos‘s shoe trove, Khruschev’s pounding of his shoe on a table at the UN, Adlai Stevenson‘s hole in his sole, and Prince Charming‘s use of a glass slipper to select his bride as history’s greatest political shoe stories.