Wednesday, December 17, 2008

THIS JUST IN! EDWIN SCHLOSSBERG, PRISONER OF PARK AVENUE!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
 
CAN A PUBLISHER PUT HIS MISTRESS ON THE FRONT PAGE OF HIS NEWSPAPERS TWO DAYS IN A ROW?  IF HER NAME IS CAROLINE KENNEDY, THEN YES HE CAN!
 
MEANWHILE PRINCESS BRAT CONTINUES TO BE DOGGED BY AND IGNORE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE LOCATION OF HER CUCKOLDED HUSBAND EDWIN SCHLOSSBERG. 
 
REACHED FOR COMMENT, SCHLOSSBERG TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "I GUESS I CAN'T EVEN PRETEND TO MOUNT SURPRISE.  I MEAN, AFTER ALL, WHEN YOUR NAMED EDWIN IT'S LIKE YOUR PARENTS HAVE SET YOU UP TO BE A CUKOLD."
 
ASKED WHETHER HE PREFERRED TO BE BILLED AS "THE NEW JUDY DEAN" (HOWARD DEAN'S NOTORIOUSLY PRESS SHY WIFE) OR "THE PRISONER OF PARK AVENUE," SCHLOSSBERG DECLARED, "I THINK THE LATTER.  IT ACKNOWLEDGES HOW PRICEY MY PERSONAL HELL IS.  AND, IN ANSWER TO YOUR THIRD QUESTION, I HAVE TOLD CAROLINE OVER AND OVER THAT THE ORANGE HAIR IS UNATTRACTIVE BUT SHE SWEARS IT IS A SHADE OF BLONDE."
 
 
 
 
Oliver August (Times of London) reports Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi's brother, Durgham al-Zaidi, states his brother has serious injuries, "He has got a broken arm and ribs, and cuts to his eye and arm. He is being held by forces under the command of Muwafaq al-Rubaie [Iraq's national security adviser]."  The journalist's name is also spelled by the press as: Muntathar al-Zaidi.  Muntathar threw both of his shoes at the Bully Boy of the United States.  Both shoes missed.  Bully Boy joked, "This is what happens in free societies" and it's one of his more obvious jokes as bullies and thugs attacked Muntathar for a shoe-ing, demonstrating that there was no free society in Iraq.  Sunday  Adam Ashton and Mohammed al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reported: "Another Iraqi journalist yanked Zaidi to the ground before bodyguards collapsed on Zaidi and held him there while he yelled 'Killer of Iraqis, killer of children.'  From the bottom of the pile, he moaned loudly and said 'my hand, my hand.'  Zaidi was hauled to a sepaate room, where his cries remained audible for a few moments."   Monday  Steven Lee Myers and Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reported, "Mr. Maliki's security agents jumped on the man, wrestled him to the floor and hustled him out of the room.  They kicked him and beat him until 'he was crying like a woman,' said Mohammed Taher, a reporter for Afaq, a television station owned by the Dawa Party".  Reuters noted: "The journalist was leapt on by Iraqi security officials and U.S. secret service agents and dragged from the room screaming and struggling."  Greg Gordon and Adam Ashton (McClatchy Newspapers) report today that the US Secret Service has donned hair shirts over what they see as their own lack of quick action which can also be read as: Any damage to the journalist was done by the thugs Nouri al-Maliki has employed as his palace guards and not by us.  The reaction apart from Nouri's thugs has been enthusiastic.  Timothy Williams and Abeer Mohammed (New York Times) report a person in Saudi Arabia has offered $10 million for either of the shoes thrown. Raed Rafei and Khaled Hijabcalls (Los Angeles Times' Babylon & Beyond) sketch out the Iraqi reaction:  
 

In a barbershop near downtown Beirut on Monday, customers buzzed about the reporter's political gesture.                
"It was great," one customer said, beaming with satisfaction.        
Another responded by saying that Bush certainly deserved it for inflicting "disaster" on the Iraqi people.                 
The video of the journalist throwing his shoes at Bush was played over and over again on television stations including the pan-Arab Al Jazeera as well as Iranian state television and even radio.             
"Please listen again," said a radio announcer in Tehran. "This is the sound of the shoe hitting the wall and missing President Bush."          
The left-leaning Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar featured the news in on its front page under the headline, "The farewell kiss for Bush," calling the reporter a "hero" who stood up to the president.              
"This was without a doubt the best farewell as seen by millions of Iraqis who were heartened" by the reporter's action, said the daily, adding that Iraqis were "probably sad when they saw their Prime Minister Nouri Maliki throwing himself in front of his guest to protect him."                      

At McClatchy's Inside Iraq, an Iraqi correspondent provides reactions from various Iraqis.  Ammar Mohammed declares, "Of course he's a hero! He did what no one has been able to do so far: He gave Bush the criminal what he deserves.  Insulting  aman is more severe than killing him.  It was sooooo funny -- and the moron didn't even get it!  But I am glad that it was publicized -- it is good -- protection for Mutathar: now they can't make him 'disappear' . . . Or can they?" A mother asks, "How many Iraqis did Bush kill in Iraq?  Hundreds of thousands.  This shoe is settlement for only one.  How many Muntathars do we need to settle our debt with Bush?"  AP's Qassim Abdul-Zahra reported this morning that despite street protests today calling for Muntadhar al-Zeidi's release, he has been "handed over to the Iraqi judiciary" and is expected to face trial for the run-by shoeing.  Oliver August noted this was day two of protests calling for Muntadhar's release and that protests took place in Mosul, Nasiriyah and Falluja.  Wisam Mohammed (Reuters) reports Muntadhar acknowledged he threw the shoes today in court accodring to "Abdul Satar Birrqadr, spokesman for Iraq's High Judicial Council." And it gets more ridiculous: "The court decided to keep Zaidi in custody, and after the judge completes his investigation of the case may send him for trial under a clause in the Iraqi penal code that punishes anyone who attempts to murder Iraqi or foreign presidents."  Attempts to murder?  Again, Iraq is not a free society nor a democracy.  Attempts to murder?  For an attempted murder, Dana Perino is being very light-hearted.  The White House spokesperson opened today's briefing with a joke, "Hi, everybody.  The shoe check-in policy and checkout policy will begin tomorrow."  And the press responded to the joke with laughter.  It was not an attempted murder and for the international press not to be calling out this journalist being held is appalling.  At the White House briefing, Perino offered this perspective:
 
Well, it was just a shoe, and the President saw it from his vantage point. He felt fine about it. I think you saw he let the Secret Service know he thought he was okay, and the Secret Service jumped in as quickly as they thought they needed to. And then they were able to back off and let the Prime Minister of a duly -- the duly elected Prime Minister of a sovereign Iraq taking questions from journalists there who never would have been able to do that five years ago. And the President just thinks it was just a -- it was just a shoe.    
People express themselves in lots of different ways. Obviously he was very angry. I can't think -- I don't -- I can't tell you exactly what the shoe thrower was thinking, but I can tell what the President thought, was that he was fine. And he said immediately -- you saw his reaction was, don't worry about it; it was okay.   So we hold no hard feelings about it, and we've really moved on.
 
No offense to Dana Perino -- who got hit with a boom mike during the incident (thanks to the Secret Service) -- but when the White House is showing more maturity and perspective than others in the international playground, there is something seriously wrong.  CBS adds, "Zeidi, 29, has been working for Al-Baghdadiya since it launched in 2005, reports CBS News' Khaled Wassef in London. Co-workers describe him as a rather quiet and composed. Zeidi has been arrested before, in error, by American forces and was let go, reports CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer. This time, his family has been told he faces years in jail." For a shoe-ing.  For a shoe-ing?
 

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