Eideard

When a pair of black leather oxfords hurled at President George W. Bush in Baghdad produced a gasp heard around the world, a Turkish cobbler had a different reaction: They were his shoes.

“We have been producing that specific style, which I personally designed, for 10 years, so I couldn’t have missed it, no way,” said Ramazan Baydan in Istanbul. “As a shoemaker, you understand.”

Although his assertion has been impossible to verify – cobblers from Lebanon, China and Iraq have also staked claims to what is quickly becoming some of the most famous footwear in the world – orders for Baydan’s shoes, formerly known as Ducati Model 271 and since renamed “The Bush Shoe,” have poured in from around the world.

A new run of 15,000 pairs, destined for Iraq, went into production Thursday, he said. A British distributor has asked to become the Baydan Shoe Co.’s European sales representative, with a first order of 95,000 pairs, and a U.S. company has placed an order for 18,000 pairs. Four distributors are competing to represent the company in Iraq, where Baydan sold 19,000 pairs of this model for about $40 each last year.

Five thousand posters advertising the shoes, on their way to the Middle East and Turkey, proclaim “Goodbye Bush, Welcome Democracy” in Turkish, English and Arabic.

I love the quote from the shoe company’s general manager: Noting the spike in sales, Serkan Turk, said, “Bush served some good purpose to the economy before he left.”