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Tick-tock, tick-tock. Muntadar al-Zeidi's 15 minutes are about to run out. The Iraqi TV reporter who hurled his footwear at President Bush last week became an instant hero in the Arab world even before the second shoe dropped. But he will soon discover that the news cycle is a brutal mistress: before you know it, you're yesterday's headline...
Iraq's parliamentarians, who rarely shy away from showboating, didn't disappoint either. There were rowdy scenes in the legislature as lawmakers from anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc interrupted a discussion about the fate of non-U.S. troops in Iraq to demand al-Zaidi's immediate release. Noisy exchanges ensued, culminating with the mercurial speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, threatening to resign. "I can't work in such a situation!" he shouted, according to lawmakers who attended the session. It's not clear if al-Mashhadani, who is known for his outbursts, will follow through...
...opponents of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, it was an Eid bonus. With the hubbub over the Status of Forces Agreement having died down, the movement led by the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had run out of things to denounce: Zeidi's "heroism" was just what they needed to return to the streets, bearing the usual banners of protest and U.S. flags to burn. The Sadrists also made political hay of Zeidi in parliament, bringing it to a standstill. The gadfly speaker, Mahmoud Mashadani - no mean headline-grabber himself - threatened to resign.(See the Top 10 Awkward Moments...
...didn't take long for other shoes to drop. Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who fastballed his shoes at President George W. Bush in Baghdad over the weekend, remains in custody, but his act of individual protest has feverishly rippled out across the country, sparking uproar in parliament and pride on the streets. The obscure correspondent for al-Baghdadiya, a satellite-TV channel that broadcasts from Cairo, could face from two to seven years' imprisonment for hurling his footwear at the U.S. President and for calling Bush...
...Sadrists were saying 'We are talking about having immunity for foreign troops here while an Iraqi is in prison for insulting a foreigner,'" says Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker who attended the session. "They're trying to embarrass al-Maliki in an election year, to portray him as an American puppet." (See the Top 10 Awkward Moments...