Eric Margolis: Send America to Rehab

Muntader al-Zaidi is one brave Iraqi journalist to have demonstrated more courage and veracity than all the sycophantic words of America's fawning media. The shoes Zaidi threw at Bush - a Force 10 Arab insult - reminded the world that George Bush, Dick Cheney and their Iraqi Quislings have the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on their hands - perhaps as many as one million - and ultimate responsibility for creating four million refugees.

While al-Zaidi was being beaten in prison for his courageous act, off in New York, the fabled financial guru, Bernie Madoff, was accused of bilking clients of an astounding $50 billion while well-fed watchdogs of the Securities and Exchange Commission slept.

Ironically, while Bush and Cheney were obsessing over al-Qaida, and searching under every rock in Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden, the real danger to America was at home - on Wall Street. A decade ago, the prescient bin Laden called America's economy its Achilles Heel, and predicted it would one day collapse....