CNN did an interesting piece on this topic tonight. Apparently TSA has back-pedaled and is now saying that they were never looking for explosives in your shoes (!!!) but rather for "anomalies" that could be indicative of explosives. Trust me, I almost fell out of my chair when I heard that, but it got even better from there.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I have heard more people on the radio -- talk shows of all political leanings, disc jockeys, sports talk shows, etc -- all talk about this. The common theme was "If they can't find explosives in shoes in the x-ray, why do I have to take them off???"
By contradicting each other and generally coming across as blithering idiots, Hawley and Chertoff themselves may ulimately succeed in doing what the public has been unable to do for at least a couple of years -- end the shoe carnival.