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.
I saw it.
Nope.
To give you an idea, even Carl Levin raised serious questions about the details surrounding Galloway and Oil for Food.
All Galloway had was bluff, the Senate documents and witnesses.
Just a reminder, since many seem to forget, the Senate didn't ask him to appear, Galloway staged this drama and they granted him his moment. He's had it, it's over, the investigations continue apace and I'm afraid he's in a spot of trouble.
Funny how Eurotrash hate Americans and Jews. Seems to go hand in hand.
I don't agree that he came off all that well, at least not to anybody paying attention. He has the polish of an experienced politician, but beyond the style he offered absolutely nothing of substance.
He simply denied the charges and claimed that the "evidence" was all a plot against him by the global right-wing media.
Ah, yes, that ever-present and all-controlling *right-wing* media. This guy is delusional.
Maybe true, but he is still a Arab sodomizer.
Hmmm. I wonder why Americans hate Eurotrash - this guy just reminded us.
He's fond of saying things like "you're a neo-con pro-Israeli rightwinger".
Seems to dazzle some people, but not me. I was revolted.
The man has dead eyes.
They didn't.
I have no idea why you claim they did.
Perhaps now you're ire will be directed at why they granted him his request to appear?
I think it was fine that they did grant his request for strategic reasons. Note the fact that only Coleman and Levin were there for Galloway's little moment in the sun.
And here he was, under oath.
To repeat, because so few don't seem aware of it:
Congress did not call Galloway.
They released a report last week naming him, the French man, Pasqua, and a Russian, as being recipients of illegal oil allocations from Iraq.
Galloway then thundered his way over and was granted his little hearing.
I dunno... compared to whom? Someone with magnificent personal and professional accomplishments like... Hillary Clinton? Please...
Yeesh...
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.
Yes, he used all those words and more in his testimony. He also was fond of saying "You" this and "You" that, as in "You voted for the illegal war!".
Well, well: look what the cat coughed up.
Not quite.
Galloway neither stated it quite that way, nor is it something that has been "proven" as you so very erroneously state.
Yes, the CSM documents were almost immediately deemed forgeries. The rest...not so fast. And the Senate is in possession of additional documents and witness testimony.
And Coleman did not look the least bit ruffled, let alone "flabbergasted" as you wishfully state.
I watched it. I don't agree.
I'm right.
Politics aside, it was pretty funny to watch.
Seventeen years as chief prosecutor and solicitor general of the state of Minnesota.
And it showed today. He did an excellent job of calmly and professionally handling the hearing and not taking Galloway's bait.
It clearly has you rattled.
Actually, he sounded like Michael Myers "Mr. MacKenzie" character from "So I Married an Axe Murderer".
I was waiting for Galloway to shout, "Head, Paper, Now!!"
or
"The Colonel puts a chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly . . ."
Galloway was the male version of Janeane Garofalo.
Norm Coleman was a pretty good prosecutor, and might well have set him up, but who knows.
That's not the hearing I saw.
Nobody else seems to want to comment on the remarkable tone and demeanor of Carl Levin...during his questioning and his remarks after.
He put Galloway on the spot. It's really quite stunning that Levin made it clear that Galloway is in trouble and nobody wants to talk about that, instead being girlishly carried away by a blowhard like Georgie Porgie Galloway.
Yes, Levin spent an inordinate amount of his opening dunning U.S. companies, but he did not, as custom has become all too often for a dem politician, then disregard the specific issue at hand when he spoke to GG.
St. Paul, MN population 821,373
Murrysville, PA population 19,109
You liberals have such a stunning command of facts and analysis.
And nobody voted for you.
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