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.
what were some of Galloways comments?
I have no knowledge of any legal basis for his testimony.
But I do, by God, know why he came, and why he used the time to preach, and what effect it can have on his career and on the legitimate investigation of Oil for goodies....
Nice job Congress!
I must admit that I was expecting it, but I was also expecting to see Coleman dig into him...
Saw a few snippets on the news. If Senators had any 'nads at all they could have pimped this windbag into an anti-Semitic Anti-American tirade. But they don't apparently have the presence of mind to handle a sociopath when they face one. GALLOWAY = CLINTON with an accent.
The point was to get him to testify under oath. His answers and non-answers are part of a hearing transcript now. Coleman may just have decided that the time is not yet ripe, in fact, Galloway may face it in Britain. I hope.
Senator Coleman said afterwards today "It's about establishing a record."
If evidence refutes Galloway's testimony, he'll be hit with perjury. The trap has now been set.
I'd like to see him appear before Hyde's committee as well.
Did he really say those terms in the testimony? Somehow the snippet I saw on CNN didn't include that, just the slur about being a lawyer and justice.
I'm sure after that performance the CIA and others are very busy. No stone will be left unturned. I can't wait until he burns.
The problem lies in the actual evidence, as Mr. Galloway stated, most of the evidence against him has been proven to be false, case in point the retraction of the Christian Science Monitor story on him and his win in a libel suit (of around $1.85 million adjusted) against the Daily Telegraph. Apparently the Brits have their own problems with faulty news reports a la CBS, Newsweek.
Many of the documents used against him are said to have come from Ahkmed Chalabi who has been discredited numerous times, and the documents themselves look faker than the CBS TANG memos with his name in a completely different font than the rest of the memo and printed on a diagonal. As to what I saw of the hearing both online and Fox News, I think Coleman simply put was not prepared, he looked flabergasted numerous times, and just couldn't muster up the gravitas to demand any semblence of respect.
Yup, he called him a Zionist and a neocon. Witness it here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/avdb/news_web/video/9012da68000cfe0/bb/09012da68000d153_bb_16x9.ram
Norm laid a big egg in trying to take him on. Watch it and see if you don't agree.
Other than being mayor of a sleepy town with no parking, what qualifies Norm Coleman to be a U.S. Senator?
Yeah - the riding he won is infested with rat eating rag heads. They hated Blair because Blair passed a law allowing detention without a court order. That means those rag heads can't assemble bombs with impunity.
"The mother of all smokescreens"? He gets his rhetoric, as well as his pounds sterling, from Saddam?
I would respect arguments presented by an honorable man. I don't believe Galloway fits that description. More like a British Ward Churchill.
>>May they hang his naked charred corpse from a bridge over the Thames.
I hope you can sleep at night with that image in your mind.
The fact that a majority of the voters of Minnesota cast their ballots for him? But you wouldn't know that - the only elections that leftist stooges like yourself recognize are the ones where people like Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro get 99.9% of the "vote."
And the best part about it was that since it was George Galloway, I only had to salute with one finger.
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