Cenk Uygur: We're talking to Michael Hirsh of Newsweek. Michael, I want to move on to George W. Bush and the...

Michael Hirsh: Shoe throwing!

Cenk Uygur: The shoe throwing. You know, I don't...I've already said my piece on the shoe throwing. Obviously it's not the constructive way to go. But, um...


Michael Hirsh: I think it was somehow appropriate.

Cenk Uygur: You do?


Michael Hirsh: Oh I think the guy, the journalist who did, is now a hero and a good part of the Arab World.


Cenk Uygur: There's no question about that. He's already gotten a courage award in Libya, and there's thousands of people protesting for his release already. But do you think it was an appropriate wake-up call for Bush? And if so...


Michael Hirsh: I think Bush is going to need a lot more than that for a wake-up call. But I think there are a lot of Iraqis, obviously Arabs, particularly Iraqis, who are quite angry with the devastation of their country. I mean, look at this report from Stuart Bowen's office, the Iraq special inspector, late last week was concluded that despite all the money we put in there, all we achieved in doing was basically bring the country approximately back to where it was when Saddam was, you know, in rule. And at the cost, obviously, of thousands and thousands of Iraqi's lives...and limbs...and, you know. They have reason to be upset with the author of this, and a shoe aimed at Bush's head I think is not such a terrible expression of some of that frustration.

Cenk Uygur: That's really interesting. So, I thought what was much more problematic for Bush in that visit was his interview with ABC where he says, you know, "it turns out Al Qaeda wanted this to be the central front on the War on Terror," and Marta Raddatz says, "wait, wait, wait not before you invaded...after you invaded."

Michael Hirsh: Yeah.

Cenk Uygur: And he says, "So what?"

Michael Hirsh: Look, it's, you know. Very soon now, and I think about very little over 30 days, we're going to stop this, you know, nation's mass hallucination we've all allowed ourselves to be subjected to, whereby we thought the Iraq War was a rational act. It was not a rational act. Obama raised to attention in part because in 2002 he said, "look this is a dumb war." And, we can now get on with our lives. You know, this guy is about gone, and we can stop pretending that there was any kind of, you know, rational, strategic motivation behind this act of war that he committed. And that's that. I mean, you know...let's just move beyond it already. Let's try to fix the damage as best we can.

Cenk Uygur: I hear you on that, Michael. But I do want to do a final period on that, which is, I think that "so what" is emblematic of his entire 8-year reign. You know, where he was callously indifferent to the consequences of his actions. And what is really pathetic is that he still doesn't seem to get it. You know, all those people died and he thinks as the President of the United States of America, it's appropriate to say "so what" to that question in the middle of an interview.

Michael Hirsh: Well look, I mean, I think that once, like Bush and all the senior officials, you've made a decision like the invasion of Iraq, the alternative to defending it is too terrible. I mean, to contemplate the idea that you went to war completely unnecessarily, and that all that blood is on your hands is just too much to contemplate. Besides, I think you're going to see Bush and Condi Rice, and Rumsfeld and the rest of them...they're going to spend the rest of their lives justifying that, trying to defend it. You will not hear any one of them say "Ugh, you know what, we screwed up the whole thing. It wasn't the right thing to do." You simply won't hear it. And, you know, that's just the way it is. And Bush is not going to end up in Hague, obviously. There's not going to be any charges against him, and so, you know, a shoe shied at him by an Iraqi journalist, you know, that might be the one small measure of justice that is achieved.