Iraqi Reporter Came Very Close to Getting His Virgins

The Secret Service is getting questions about their response to the Iraqi "journalist" who threw his shoes at the president:

ABC News' Ann Compton Reports: U.S. Secret Service officials in Washington say they are satisfied their agents responded with "the appropriate level of reaction" when an Iraqi journalist hurled two shoes directly at President Bush during a Baghdad news conference.

"Everyone in that room passed through several layers of security," Agent Ed Donovan tells ABC News. Screening included magnetometers, sweeps by K9 dogs and U.S. military bomb squads. Donovan says name identification checks were done on all the journalists to confirm they were representing news organizations.

Video of the incident shows the Iraqi man stand up and hurl one shoe and then the second shoe two seconds later. President Bush ducked both. The head of the presidential protective detail was seen reaching the President's side within six seconds, by which time the Iraqi had already been pulled to the ground from behind by a man in leather jacket, likely another Iraqi.

"There doesn't appear to be any over-reaction" on the part of American agents, Donovan says, confirming the Secret Service agents who poured into the room did not draw their weapons.

No weapons were drawn, but I guarantee you that if that Iraqi had nine lives, he used up four of them on each shoe toss. One more threatening move would have earned him his 72 virgins. I think we could have called it a "shoe-icide bomb" (thank you, Michelle Malkin).