The wonderful symbolic power of a journalist throwing his shoes at "the most powerful man on earth" has exhausted the intellectual powers of those writing in this thread. We have descended from lucid discourse to paranoia, anti-Semitism and holocaust denial, I think unrelated to the core problem Mr. Muntazer al-Zaidi addressed. Instead of our wanting to expand on Muntazer al-Zaidi's choosing to join a long tradition against suppression of personal expression, many comments display the societal dysfunction in our time, the unrestrained impulses to crudely attack and coarsely vilify each other. Mr. Bush forfeited all his rights to claim polite behavior from Iraqis. Mr. al-Zaidi had every right to penetrate the "bubble" with his shoes. But how was Mr. Bush permitted to ascend to his tyrant's throne? Leading the way with his own unrestrained impulses to attack and vilify, he spawned the public popularity of Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and Coulter. When we imitate him and them, we are not morally ascendant. We become part of the problem. We have no more license to become holocaust deniers than journalists and news purveyors have license to censor what they tell us about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Conscience, logic, and decency take precedence over freedom of expression. We mustn't allow ourselves or each other to descend into brutality.