A woman was arrested after throwing objects, including a shoe, at Hillary Clinton. The former secretary of state was giving a speech in Las Vegas, and according to the AP, she “ducked but did not appear to be hit by the object.”
The Las Vegas Review Journal said the woman threw what appeared to be a strappy shoe and a bunch of papers at Clinton during her speech at a meeting of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino. The paper reported that Clinton had several comebacks, including “Is that somebody throwing something at me?” and “Is that part of Cirque de Soleil?” and “My goodness, I didn’t know that solid waste management was so controversial.”
In July 2012, Clinton’s motorcade was pelted with shoes and tomatoes in Egypt. The most famous incident of shoe-throwing at a political figure was in 2008, when Muntadhar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist, threw a shoe at then-president George W. Bush at a press conference in Baghdad. “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” al-Zaidi shouted. Bush also ducked.
Since Clinton wasn’t hurt, social media promptly erupted in jokes. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza (an msnbc contributor) mockingly proposed a political angle: “What the Vegas shoe-throwing incident means for Hillary’s chances in the 2016 Nevada presidential caucuses.”
Irin Carmon