Indian minister is latest shoe attack victim

India's home minister, P Chidambaram, has joined George W. Bush, Wen Jiabao, and possibly Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the dubious honor of having a shoe thrown at him in public.

The journalist who threw the shoe at Chidambaram at a press conference was angry that the minister was evading his quesitons about the recent acquittal of a politician who is accused of leading anti-Sikh riots in 1984.

While the shoe-throw seems to be catching on as a form of public protest, it's worth noting that no one has actually been hit yet. Iraqi journalist Munthader al-Zaidi, the originator of this practice, probably got closest. It seems that hitting a politician with a shoe may be harder than it looks, and will only get harder now that they're coming to expect it.