“This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog!” That’s what a journalist named Muntadhar al-Zaidi shouted when he hurled his shoes at President Bush’s head during a press conference back in 2008.
You don’t have to dig very deeply into my archives to discover that I was neither a fan of the Iraq War nor the Bush administration. Admittedly there were times when I went a little overboard in my criticism, but I stand by much of what I wrote (the substance, at least, not so much the style). That said, when al-Zaidi winged his shoes at the president, and having been old enough to remember the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan, I was appalled by the act and I wasn’t shy about expressing my disgust with some of my friends and peers who celebrated the occasion.
Not only was it a violent physical assault against the President of the United States, which, supporter or not, is an attack against the United States itself, but I generally find these sorts of protests to be profoundly ugly and counterproductive. It doesn’t matter if it’s Code Pink accosting Condoleezza Rice, or if it’s a kid hurling a pie at Bill Kristol. Again, I loathe Kristol and I think Rice was an awful Secretary of State, but assailing them in public is the worst, most obnoxious form of activism I can think of.
Such deeds send sends a very clear message: 1) you’ve got nothing of substance to say, and 2) you’re a child.
Such is the case with the crazy lady who hurled a shoe at Hillary Clinton the other day. Her name is Alison Michelle Ernst and, during the Scrap Recycling Industries convention in Las Vegas, she managed to get into an auditorium where Clinton was speaking. From the aisle, Ernst threw an orange soccer shoe at the former Secretary of State along with a wad of paper containing information about “Operation Cynthia,” a Bolivian op aimed at capturing Che Guevara in 1967.
As you might’ve guessed, it turns out Ernst is a conspiracy theorist of the Alex Jones InfoWars variety. Among other things, we’ve learned that Ernst is obsessed with the trial of James Holmes, the gunman who mowed down 82 people, killing 12, inside an Aurora, Colorado movie theater. However, she’s not just into the case in a courtroom drama, Nancy Grace way, Ernst insists that Holmes is a victim of the New World Order and that the conspirators behind it had brain-washed Holmes, implanting the idea for the shooting in his head, not unlike the MK/ULTRA mind-control program, a popular conspiracy theorist hobby horse. Indeed, there are numerous articles at InfoWars on the Holmes/mind-control connection.
On one occasion, Ernst disrupted the Holmes trial with loud outbursts and was obviously removed from the courtroom. Afterwards, she filed a motion that read in part:
“Holmes is an innocent man. James Holmes must be released to me asap [sic]. This is a huge conspiracy involved in with new world and a group of cabal evil worldwide crooks who want to control the world through false flag attacks akin to George Orwell 1984 [sic].”
Yeah, her cheese has definitely fallen off her cracker. She went on to write, “James Holmes [is] entering my mind through subliminal messaging and causing me to be obsessed with him on a daily basis.” I’m not sure the Alex Jones crowd has ever gone that far, but there it is.
So it should come as no surprise that there’s now a conspiracy theory surrounding Ernst herself. Yep, say hello to the “Shoe Truthers.” They believe Ernst was a Clinton plant, coached to throw the shoe and Che Guevara page at the would-be presidential candidate… READ MORE