No Business Like Shoe Business

It was inevitable that someone would find a commercial opportunity in the shoe-throw heard around the world.

A Turkish shoemaker claims to be the maker of the shoes that an Iraqi journalist hurled at President Bush at a news conference. The Baydan Shoe Company of Istanbul says it has received orders for 300,000 pairs of Model 271 - yes, you too can own the same black leather oxfords that whizzed over the president's head. That is quadruple the typical annual sales for that model.

Around 120,000 pairs have been ordered from Iraq, Ramazan Baydan, the company's owner, told the Guardian. He says he is planning to rename the model "the Bush Shoe" or "Bye-Bye Bush".

"We've been selling these shoes for years but, thanks to Bush, orders are flying in like crazy," Baydan told Bloomberg News. "We've even hired an agency to look at television advertising."

Baydan's clearly has a talent for promotion and has persuaded enough Western journalists of his claims. How anyone can identify one pair of black leather shoes from another based on photos and video of airborne is questionable at best. Indeed, shoemakers from Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere have sought to claim credit for the shoes, but have lacked the PR apparatus to get their names prominently displayed.

The shoes became famous at a news conference on December 14 by President Bush and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in Baghdad. As Bush was speaking, the Iraqi journalist, Muntander al-Zaidi, stood up and yelling insults in Arabic, hurled a shoe at the president. Bush ducked and Zaidi tried with the other shoe, missing his target again.

His unusual angry protest was hailed throughout the Arab world, where the war in Iraq is deeply unpopular.

So who really cobbled those shoes? We may never know their provenance: The New York Times reports, "Explosives tests by investigators destroyed the offending footwear."