The London Times on Hitchens/Galloway
This is about right:
Even as accomplished a demagogue as Mr Galloway eventually overstepped the mark. To boos from the audience, he suggested that American foreign policy was to blame for the September 11 attacks – particularly Washington’s support for Israel.
“Some believe that those aeroplanes on September 11 came out of a clear blue sky. I believe they came out of a swamp of hatred created by us,” he proclaimed. “I believe that because the total, complete unending and bottomless support for General Sharon’s crimes against the Palestinian people.”
Mr Hitchens also blundered by issuing an unpopular defence of the Bush administration’s handling of the flooding of New Orleans. “This is where it ends,” Mr Galloway crowed. “You start off being the liberal mouthpiece for one of the most reactionary governments this country has ever known and you end up a mouthpiece and apologist for these miserable malevolent incompetents who cannot even pick up the bodies of their own citizens in New Orleans. You know, Mr Hitchens, you are a court jester – not in Camelot like other miserable liberals before you, but in the court of the Bourbon Bushes.”
My call as the event was going on was much the same; I expected better from Hitchens on the New Orleans question (probably the best answer would have been ‘I’m not here to talk about New Orleans, this debate is about Iraq’), but clearly the ‘blame America for 9/11 – and the Jews, too’ tactics of Galloway were poorly received, as well they should be.
I still don’t have a transcript link; if anyone finds one, why not let us all know in the comments…
UPDATE 10:37 a.m. central: With the hat tip to Moonbat Central, here is a take from a liberal’s perspective:
For myself, I was tremendously disappointed in Galloway’s performance and while there was no knock-out blow as such, I’d say that Hitchens won handily on points.Perhaps Galloway should have spent more of his time actually laying out his case against the war and less of it feebly attempting to expose Hitch as being an opportunistic, self-serving, ex-commie hack (or a “slobbering slug” as he called him) on the basis of his past anti-war writings and opposition to the first Gulf War. Aside from that, much of the rest his performance was little more than name-calling, pandering demagoguery and rhetorical theatrics of the worst sort. Frankly, it was embarrassing to see much of the crowd reflexively whoop and holler in derision when any mention of “Cheney” “Blair” or “Neo-Con” was made.
Apparently sober, Hitch stayed on course for the most part throughout the debate and was fairly compelling in making his argument in support of the war with rigor and clarity. One could take issue with his phony contrivance at the beginning of his opening remarks where he asked for a few moments silence in respect of the hundreds of innocent victims who died that very day in a wave of bombings across Iraq, but it was hard to deny its pointed effectiveness. Aside from that, there was little to find fault with other than the actual substance of his argument. Even the sniping at Galloway, for example accusing him of being “a courtier of sadists” were well aimed and generally hit the mark. After all, his reputation for shamelessly fellating dictators and thugs is undeniable.
Ouch, that’s gotta hurt…
Mark–Regarding “these miserable malevolent incompetents who cannot even pick up the bodies of their own citizens in New Orleans,” I’m irked that this fallacious shuttlecock was not stuffed back down Galloway’s throat.
As the saying goes, “let the living take care of the living and the dead take care of the dead.” Meaning: while the 15,000 Search & Rescue personnel were frantically combing the city for survivors, it was only a certain ghoulish element of the press, particularly the foreign press, that was combing the city for corpses to photograph.
Let’s be frank: those that tragically died have not gotten any deader. The obviously correct first allocation of human resources was for searching and rescuing. Now that that job is for the most part done, the dead can and are being removed respectfully and with dignity.
I’m glad I went, ultimately, but it probably would have been just as fun to watch via the web. People that yell at political debates, as if they were at a football game, are a pain in the neck.
Reading through your “live blogging” post, I think you did a great job of capturing the scene. Thanks.
Greg, thanks for the update. Indeed, the masses who screamed with delight at the mention of Cindy Sheehan, ‘neocons’, and ‘Halliburton’ reminded me of the people who go to rock concerts and go nuts when the lead singer mentions the two he’s playing in…
Here you go my friend – free of charge
http://www.kpftx.org/#galloway
Cheers.
AJ, thanks…but am I missing something? I see the audio links, but not the transcript…
Have a good one!…
Off topic, but FYI, Kos is calling off the big war. From the Corner:
KATRINA SPARES THE DLC [Byron York]
For months now, the lefty blogger Markos Moulitsas of the DailyKos has been promising an all-out war on the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. Last May, Moulitsas wrote a column entitled, “Time for the DLC to die,” in which he referred to the organization as “cancerous” and said that the moment had come “to euthanize the organization.” Then, at the beginning of August, Moulitsas wrote that the DLC was in fact dying, but that he — along with fellow “progressives” — had a plan to “hasten the process”:
So what’s left? Let the DLC fizzle out on its own? We could do that. It has a limited shelf life. Or we can help the process along, working collectively to hasten the process. And I’ve got a plan to do just that. Consider this a teaser. ETA is four weeks.
But four weeks came and went with no war on the DLC. So yesterday Moulitsas published a note saying it is more important for “progressives” now to mount a post-Katrina political offensive:
I’ve laid off the DLC for the time being. The Katrina disaster has not only made this sort of intra-party fight a bit counterproductive at the moment, but it has refocused the allies and media I was going to engage in the campaign to the more important task of getting to the bottom of the disaster on the gulf coast. The window has closed for now.
I can’t find the above post on Kos, although I admit I didn’t look very hard because I find that site really…irritating.
Thanks for the tip!…I’ll check it out…