Assassination without bullets (or weapons).

One of these things makes the other sound ridiculous. Pick out which one is the exaggeration!

While Bush wasn't harmed, the incident was reminiscent of John W. Hinckley's failed attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 . Hinckley slipped into a crowd of reporters outside the Washington Hilton , and when Reagan emerged from a speaking appearance, the 25-year-old drifter fired six shots with a .22-caliber handgun, hitting Reagan in the chest, permanently disabling presidential press secretary Jim Brady with a bullet to the head and wounding a Secret Service agent and a police officer.

Contrast with this statement from the Secret Service:

"It's obvious that (Bush) could have been hit in the head with a shoe,'' he said. "Anytime there's an incident like this, we're going to review it. We're always trying to improve ourselves.''

Give up? I know. It sounds too improbable that someone used the phrase "always trying to improve ourselves" right after a sentence including the word "Bush" , but it happened. Clearly, they are bald-faced liars.

Okay, serious time: there is not even a remote similarity between the scenario of the shoe thrower and John Hinckley. Here's a non-exhaustive list of reasons why:

• Hinckley was a U.S. citizen. Zaidi is an Iraqi citizen. And the conference took place in Iraq, which just happened to be a country that Bush invaded. Slightly different climate than good ol' U.S. soil.
  
• Hinckley was not a journalist, and had to sneak around. Zaidi was a journalist, and was actually supposed to be in the press conference.
• Hinckley intended to hurt people, and did. Zaidi did not (most likely) and did not.
• Hinckley used an actual weapon (related to above). Zaidi threw a f#@$ing shoe. He should have thrown some form of food product to make the responses against this move look as ridiculous as they truly are.
  
• Hinckley was insane. Zaidi was outraged.
• Hinckley's attack, by your own description, didn't even occur inside a press conference, but only when Reagan was leaving one.

The only similarity is that 1. a President was targeted with something that moved a distance greater than 5 feet, and 2. it happened in or around a speaking engagement of that President. That is the only comparison I can see, and trying to draw any further ones is just a tad beyond disingenuous, and only providing fodder for those who are going to claim that this was a vicious attack anyway. I would almost call the comparison fearmongering if it weren't for the fact that I think that it was far too inane to even intentionally have been that. Just plain sloppiness, I assume.