Bush's shoe-shoot duck becomes YouTube sensation!

WASHINGTON: Video of George Bush, depicting the US President ducking shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist during a news conference, has become a rapidly growing YouTube sensation.

The footage has taken cyberspace by storm acquiring 11 of the top 20 most-watched videos spot at the video-sharing website while also becoming a forum for anti-Bush campaigners.

Various YouTube users had uploaded different versions of the video, with several videos having more than 500,000 views each, while dozens of versions topped 100,000 views.

"This is going viral at a rapid pace, unlike anything I've seen postelection," The Washington Times quoted David Burch, marketing manager for TubeMogul, which tracks YouTube video views, as saying.

"People are uploading videos of the incident to YouTube at an average rate of 209 per hour. Currently, there are over 5,000 versions, totalling over 8,145,000 views," he added.

Iraqi Muntadhar al-Zeidi had whipped off both his shoes and hurled them at Bush during the president's surprise stop in Baghdad, forcing the politician to duck them both.

Bush, who had been far from injury, had joked: "If you want the facts, it's a size-10 shoe that he threw."