Christopher Hitchens has to be one of the premier knife artists currently working in the English language. Can’t say I’m that big a fan of his post-mortem assaults on Catholic luminaries, but when he lights up a political celebrity, well, its all good.
Indeed, he was a type well known in the Labour movement. Prolier than thou, and ostentatiously radical, but a bit too fond of the cigars and limos and always looking a bit odd in a suit that was slightly too expensive. By turns aggressive and unctuous, either at your feet or at your throat; a bit of a backslapper, nothing’s too good for the working class: what the English call a “wide boy.”
TO THIS DAY, George Galloway defiantly insists, as he did before the senators, that he has “never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf.” As a Clintonian defense this has its admirable points: I myself have never seen a kilowatt, but I know that a barrel is also a unit and not an entity. For the rest, his defense would be more impressive if it answered any charge that has actually been made. Galloway is not supposed by anyone to have been an oil trader. He is asked, simply, to say what he knows about his chief fundraiser, nominee, and crony. And when asked this, he flatly declines to answer. We are therefore invited by him to assume that, having earlier acquired a justified reputation for loose bookkeeping in respect of “charities,” he switched sides in Iraq, attached himself to a regime known for giving and receiving bribes, appointed a notorious middleman as his envoy, kept company with the corrupt inner circle of the Baath party, helped organize a vigorous campaign to retain that party in power, and was not a penny piece the better off for it. I think I believe this as readily as any other reasonable and objective person would. If you wish to pursue the matter with Galloway himself, you will have to find the unlisted number for his villa in Portugal.
Hitch gets in a few licks on our own torpid Senate as well, and is pleased to report being characterized by George Galloway
We certainly have our fair share of odious idiots, craven lickspittles, and oleaginous opportunists here in the States, but is there, anywhere in the Anglosphere, a worse human being than George Galloway?
…is there, anywhere in the Anglosphere, a worse human being than George Galloway?
I’m sure I won’t be alone in nominating Mikey Moore.
I’m sure I won’t be alone in nominating Mikey Moore.
I’ll second that! And I think that Tad Rall must run him a close second…
Not at all sure about Michael Moore and I’m sure that with his colossal warped ego he would only view it as a compliment, rather than an insult. We certainly have some far more odious specimens in the UK than just George Galloway – Stephen Byers and his boss rank far worse in my opinion than Galloway, whose shelf life only has a limited time left until even he undoubtedly becomes repelled at the anctics of the muslim extremists in his own constituency or they see through his pathetic ‘I need to be in parliament, whatever the cost’ behaviour.
Whilst there are many disagreeable things about Mr GG. he has, in his time purveyed a few withering (and popular) home truths – he enlivens the UK body politic – and no-one will deny that it needs a testosterone injection.
GKC “The Flying Inn” “There are crowds who do not care to revolt; but there are no crowds who do not like some one else to do it for them; a fact which the safest oligarchies may be wise to learn.”
CH XV111 The Republic of Peaceways
Observers of Q Time ( the BBC Dimblobore Ask the Family Show) this week ,will have seen that the audience were extraordinarily supportive of the smirking, cigar smoking, self-satisfied, smug, smart suited Scotsman on his triumphant return from the Senate.
Later in the same Chapter GKC continues …””Through the broken windows came the confused roar of that confused tongue…the cry deaf kings have heard at last; the terrible voice of mankind”.
It would be a fool who dismissed the influence of this very energetic, hard working, media savvy ( and savagely litigious) gentleman on the course of Public Affairs.
Hitchens confuses the man with the message. But then Mr Hitchens in my experience is very easily confused.
he enlivens the UK body politic
Sure, in the way a poisonous snake would enliven a tea party. Still doesn’t mean that that’s something to look forward to…!
George Galloway only represents the cause of George Galloway & seems to have made that fact perfectly obvious to anyone with common sense – forgive me if I expect a little more from our elected representatives than naked ambition & greed on display for all to see. At least the others are better at hiding it!
Via Rantburg:
UK MP George Galloway could face a new inquiry into the finances of an appeal he set up to help a sick Iraqi girl. The Charity Commission has said it will contact US senators investigating claims Mr Galloway was given credits for Iraqi oil by Saddam Hussein.
The UK body is keen to see US evidence concerning Mr Galloway’s Mariam Appeal.
The MP denies funds from the sale of oil were funnelled through the appeal. He told senators a previous Commission inquiry had found no impropriety.
There’s other ways of enriching onesself than straight-up money, and they may be worth more to a politician. If he earned not a penny from Saddam, he has already been royally paid – because I know his name and so do you. To a minor league politician, that’s gold. So there’s no particular reason to doubt his word about kickbacks. Why would he run himself into danger? He got what he came for.
Edward Teague writes:
“Observers of Q Time ( the BBC Dimblobore Ask the Family Show) this week ,will have seen that the audience were extraordinarily supportive of the smirking, cigar smoking, self-satisfied, smug, smart suited Scotsman on his triumphant return from the Senate.”
And regular observers of QT would have expected nothing else.
The BBC’s audiences are invariably skewed so far to the anti-American Left that it’s a wonder they don’t spontaneously break out into a verse or two of The Internationale every few minutes.
Whether by conscious selection, or simply because it represents the Dimblebore-adoring classes is a matter of conjecture.
As for GG, he is a loathsome creature, whose time will surely come. And I will greatly enjoy that time, as will many others.
Galloway put on a good show in front of the Senate, no two ways about it, and watching someone stick a pin in that group’s colossal sense of its own importance is always fun, but I still dont understand why he did it. The senators and their staffs are going to go through those documents with a fine tooth comb and if they find something that contradicts his sworn testimony then they are going to nail him for perjury; his parliamentary immunity may keep him out of the slammer in the UK, but it means nothing here. Second, if the Senate does find something in the Iraqi files then you can bet dollars to doughnuts it’s going to be leaked to the WaPost or the NYTimes faster than Galloway can talk, and there will be no libel suit here as there was in the UK; in the US truth is an absolute defense against libel. Galloway would have to prove that the press libeled him, and as he is a public figure, even if the press got some of the details wrong, he’d have to prove that the press acted with malice aforethought, which is damned hard to do. It looks to me like he’s going to go the Martha Stewart route and become a leftwing martyr.
could anyone pls explain to me the “prolier than thou” comment? (the angle on “holier” i got, just not this particular variation)
thanks in advance.
I think the “prolier” comment may refer to the fact that Hitchens perceives Galloway as seeing himself as a member of the proletariat.