The al-Baghdadia television network, which employs Zaidi, broadcast his photo and martial anthems. Arab satellite TV channels and Web sites repeatedly played the scene of Bush ducking as the shoes flew past.
In Libya, a charity led by Moammar Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha announced it would give Zaidi an award for bravery and urged the Iraqi government to free him.”What he did represents a victory for human rights across the world,” said the organization, Wa Attassimou.
“The flying shoe speaks more for Arab public opinion than all the despots/puppets that Bush meets with during his travels in the Middle East,” Asad Abu Khalil, a Lebanese American college professor, wrote in his blog, the Angry Arab News Service (http://angryarab.blogspot.com).
A Saudi businessman offered to buy either of the shoes thrown at Bush for $10 million, Saudi television reported.
In Cairo, Egyptians in the middle-class neighborhood of Bulak laughed as they recounted Zaidi throwing his shoes at Bush.
“It was especially gratifying that it happened toward the end of his presidency, because this is how he will be forever remembered,” Nermine Gabaly, a 32-year-old homemaker, said with a smile. “The Iraqi reporter should not be penalized for doing this,” she added. “He just expressed his emotions as an Iraqi citizen.”
During college, Zaidi, whose family is originally from the southern city of Nasiriyah, was the head of the student union. Unmarried, he had a reputation for jumping on stories that took him to the front lines of Iraq’s conflict. He declined a promotion because he didn’t want to be cooped up inside an office, said his brother Durgham al-Zaidi, a cameraman.
“When we see a family that has experienced tragedy, we look at them as if we had lost one of our own relatives,” Durgham said.
On the air, Zaidi referred to the U.S. militarypresence as “the occupation” and was known to call Bush “the devil.”
Saif al-Deen al-Kaisi, an editor at al-Baghdadia, recalled a conversation a year and half ago in which Zaidi said, “I hope to meet Bush and hit him with my shoes.”
Zaidi opposed a recently signed U.S.-Iraq security agreement that will extend the presence of U.S. troops for at least three years. “Any honest Iraqi patriot rejected the agreement,” Maithan al-Zaidi said. Zaidi had returned to Baghdad two weeks ago after spending two months in Lebanon attending a journalism course, his relatives said. Two hours before the news conference, he spoke to Maithan and made plans to have dinner with him afterward, Maithan said. He added that there was no discussion of throwing shoes at Bush. After the incident, Iraqi guards wrestled Zaidi, his colleague Waad al-Taie and another journalist to the ground, Taie said. “They beat us and said, ‘You are a group of conspirators against this visit,’ ” he recalled. “I told them: ‘I had no idea about all this. He surprised me just as much as you.’ ” Taie said a U.S. official asked the Iraqis to release him and the other journalist.
“Muntadar has not joined any party or movement,” Maithan said. “Nobody paid him to do this. His love for Iraq made him do this.”
In the southern city of Najaf, several hundred followers of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets Monday, describing Zaidi as a religious warrior. They threw shoes at U.S. military Humvees but the Americans did not respond, witnesses said.
In Sadr’s Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City, protesters burned American flags and chanted, “Bush, Bush listen well: We pushed you out with two shoes.”
But Hassan Jarrah, a government employee in Najaf, said that Zaidi should have “expressed his personal views of protest by words, not through assaulting President Bush.”
“What he did is condemned by all decent, reasonable people,” Jarrah added. “We should show to the Iraqi public and the world at large that we Iraqis do not condone such acts, and we are innocent of his actions.”
Zaidi’s brothers said they had received scores of offers from lawyers to represent him. Iraqi politicians have also expressed their support, but Durgham said he was worried about his brother. “If in front of TV cameras, they are beating him, can you imagine what they are doing to him behind the cameras?”
At one Baghdad elementary school, a geography teacher asked her students if they had seen the footage of the shoe-throwing, then told them, “All Iraqis should be proud of this Iraqi brave man, Muntazar. History will remember him forever.”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hailed the Iraqi reporter as a role model for courageousness. “It’s a good thing it didn’t hit him. I’m not encouraging throwing shoes at anybody, but really, what a courage,” he said.
“I am not surprised. Whole word hates him.” said the CPM general secretary Prakash Karat. Himself an ardent Bush baiter, Mr Karat was unfazed and felt that Bush deserved that. “I am not for once surprised. What he had done is well known and hence the entire world hates him” he added.
Abdel-Sattar Qassem, a Palestinian political science professor at the West Bank’s An Najah University, wrote in an online commentary that “Bush wanted to end his bloody term hearing compliments and welcoming words from his collaborators in the Arab and Islamic world. But a shoe from a real Arab man summed up Bush’s black history and told the entire world that the Arabs hold their head high.”
Players can now hurl their shoes in a video game designed to bring back memories of the Iraqi farewell to Bush. Internet surfers got a kick out of making Flash-based games. In one of the games, players assume the role of Bush to earn points by dodging the shoes flying toward him. Another game scores player on how many shoes hit the animated Bush.
The intense personal resentment of Bush may give Obama an automatic advantage in his attempts to repair the U.S. image. Obama’s race and his family ties to Islam have raised hope among some Arabs that he’ll be more sympathetic to their views. Obama’s aides have spoken of his delivering a major address in a Muslim capital early in his administration to set a new tone. But many in the Middle east say it will take more than symbolic gestures. The president-elect’s promises to withdraw from Iraq and close Guantanamo have also raised Arab hopes. Another top demand is for a more balanced U.S. stance in the Arab-Israeli peace process.

But on Monday, Arabs were just glowing with pride over the farewell to Bush. “I’ve watched the video over a dozen times on You Tube and was excited every time I see him (alZaidi) standing up and calling Bush a dog,” said Tamer Ismail, 23-year-old art student in Cairo. “But I felt so bitter when he missed.”