Posted on 05/17/2005 6:55:45 PM PDT by wjersey
Whatever else you made of him, when it came to delivering sustained barrages of political invective, you had to salute his indefatigability. George Galloway stormed up to Capitol Hill yesterday morning for the confrontation of his career, firing scatter-shot insults at the senators who had accused him of profiting illegally from Iraqi oil sales.
They were "neo-cons" and "Zionists" and a "pro-war lynch mob", he raged, who belonged to a "lickspittle Republican committee" that was engaged in creating "the mother of all smokescreens".
Before the hearing began, the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow even had some scorn left over to bestow generously upon the pro-war writer Christopher Hitchens. "You're a drink-soaked former-Trotskyist popinjay," Mr Galloway informed him. "Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink," he added later, ignoring Mr Hitchens's questions and staring intently ahead. "And you're a drink-soaked..." Eventually Mr Hitchens gave up. "You're a real thug, aren't you?" he hissed, stalking away.
It was a hint of what was to come: not so much political theatre as political bloodsports - and with the senators, at least, it was Mr Galloway who emerged with the flesh between his teeth.
"I know that standards have slipped in Washington in recent years, but for a lawyer, you're remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice," he told Norm Coleman, the Minnesota Republican who chairs the senate investigations committee, after taking his seat at the front of the high-ceilinged hearing room, and swearing an oath to tell the truth.
"I'm here today, but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question."
The culture clash between Mr Galloway's bruising style and the soporific gentility of senate proceedings could hardly have been more pronounced, and drew audible gasps and laughs of disbelief from the audience. "I met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him," Mr Galloway went on. "The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns, and to give him maps the better to target those guns."
American reporters seemed as fascinated as the British media: at one point yesterday, before it was his turn to speak, Mr Galloway strode from the room, sending journalists of all nationalities rushing after him - only to discover that he was going to the lavatory.
By condemning him in their report without interviewing him, the senators had already given Mr Galloway the upper hand. But not everything was in his favour. For a start, only two senators were present, sabotaging Mr Galloway's efforts to attack the whole lickspittle lot of them - and one of the two, the Democrat Carl Levin, had spent much of his opening statement attacking the hypocrisy of the US government in allegedly allowing American firms to benefit from Iraqi oil corruption.
Even so, Mr Galloway was in his element, playing the role he relishes the most: the little guy squaring up for a fight with the establishment.
For these purposes, Senator Coleman served symbolically to represent all the evil in the world - the entire Republican party, the conscience of George Bush, the US government and the British government, too: no wonder his weak smile looked so nauseous.
"I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq," Mr Galloway told him. "Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong."
And yet for all his anti-establishment credentials, Mr Galloway is as practised as any of his New Labour enemies at squirming away from awkward questions. Under scrutiny by Senator Levin, he deployed a classic example of the bait-and-switch technique that is the government minister's best defence in difficult questioning.
But Mr Galloway Goes To Washington had never really been an exercise in clarifying the facts. It was an exercise in giving Norm Coleman, and, by extension, the Bush administration, a black eye - mere days after the bloody nose that the Respect MP took credit for having given Tony Blair. And it went as well as Mr Galloway could have wished.
Yup.
Our politicos need to be reminded they are the servants and no the slave masters.
Galloway had his political theater and sound bites. I guess
it is a vistory for him. The only way the UK does anything about him is if they have video of him receiving a suitcase full of illicit cash, preferably while smoking crack.
I don't know about that, I think it was more a case of giving the man more rope...
I saw it and yes, it was like nothing I had ever seen before in a government hearing. Quite frankly, I wished that the Republicans during the Clinton years has as much Chutzpa as this guy. Galloway is a snake in the grass but he's also a showman extraordinaire.
It made me wonder what's the point of this investigation. We are indicting Americans. Do the others get off scot-free? I guess the latter is an unintended pun. :)
Let's leave the Koran alone, but can't someone flush the Jihad-lover turd named George Galloway down a toilet somewhere????
On the whole I'd rather be in Philadepjhila.
If the Republicans had treated Billy Jeff the way Galloway treated the president and the investigating committee, the impeachment wouldn't have failed. He really knows how to dish it out, and the "distinguished gentlemen" of the Senate looked like scared women.
The leftist scum Galloway did everything but call Norm Coleman a dirty Jew. I am sure that that anti-semitic, America-hating wacko wanted to.
Even CNN said that Galloway didn't really refute the charges.
The Guardian is trying to make Galloway's rant seem like a victory. It was, instead, the bluster of someone whose goose is cooked.
That is pretty much it, he got his tv time, but the meat of the hearing, he didn't answer questions and the senators didn't bother to engage him in a show.
Unfortunately, only the television version is being reported...
He'll have lots of time to gloat in penitentiary.
Galloway to Christopher Hitchens. Ah yes Galloway. I will at least give our American friends this quote, from the Evening Standard(London April 21st) Paul Waugh and Flora Stubbs.
"Mr Galloway was electioneering on the Osier council estate in Bethnal Green last night, when a gang of 30 Muslim fundamentalists..... surrounded him and his supporters. They rejoice in the name. Hizb-ut-Tahrir. They said they were "setting up the gallows" for him "They warned any Muslim voting for Galloway faced "a sentence of deathe". (The article goes on. "Mr Galloway was forced to hide in his car in an alley.....
In the meantime between Galloway's supporters and the Islamists, "there were punches and kicks thrown" ,to quote a resident. "The police saved my life" said Galloway. Problems in the USA? yer' lucky, Galloway.
He does not realise the monster he has helped create, may one day destroy HIM.
May they hang his naked charred corpse from a bridge over the Thames.
Sounds like Galloway read Buchanan's book and plagiarized it!
Well that's what we all expected. But it doesn't matter. The evidence is in Coleman's hands.
A comment for this thread, FReepers who watched the exchange commented that Galloway's overflowing anti-semitism was very apparent, especially in his responses to Norm Coleman.
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