Informed Speculation

Don’t forget to set your VCRs, DVRs, TIVOs, what have you, to C-SPAN2 at 8:00 central tomorrow for the broadcast of Hitchens/Galloway. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Kimberly Strassel is disappointed, for a debate usually implies at least two participants:

Mr. Hitchens, it should be said, gave it his best shot. Famous for his erudition, the writer came armed with facts, figures and inescapable logic. He kept to the formal debate style–”we on this side of the House hold . . .”–and gently waved down those of his supporters who would heckle Mr. Galloway. He picked apart his opponent’s positions and did it with wit and humor. If this had been a true “debate,” any Plato, Disraeli or Webster would have handed Mr. Hitchens the win on a plate.

But this was no debate. A debate, by definition, requires two people to defend their convictions. Mr. Galloway has no obvious convictions, or at least none that are defensible. This is a man who is antiwar, yet supports those who fight war against us. He accuses America of supporting dictators, yet in July traveled to Syria to praise its tyrant, Bashar al-Assad. He claims to have known that Saddam massacred his own people in 1988, yet went to Baghdad six years later to “salute” the monster for his “courage” and “strength.”
Nor is Mr. Galloway in any way a debater. His talent–if that’s what you’d call it–is in whipping mindless crowds into furious hysteria over perceived bogeymen. There are historical precedents here, and let’s just say that as the waves of Galloway outrage and anger ripped across the auditorium I half-expected his acolytes to break into a “Heil!” or two.

To take but one example. Mr. Hitchens asked Mr. Galloway and the crowd how it was possible for a man who in Syria had praised the Iraqi terrorists to come to New York and evoke Cindy Sheehan, whose son was murdered by said terrorists?

Good question.

Mr. Galloway’s response was typical. He began by railing that “neo-con rot” had seeped into people’s souls. He lamented that he had to put up with this “hypocrite Hitchens.” He ranted that Mr. Hitchens was friends with people who owned “Tomahawk” missiles, thus allowing him to segue into a tirade about America’s treatment of its Indians (I’m not making this up). And as if to show that there were no depths to which he would not proudly sink, Mr. Galloway finished his “answer” to Mr. Hitchens’s question by announcing that the planes that brought down the World Trade Center were the direct result of “hatred created by the U.S.” and by appealing to anti-Semites with a few risible remarks about Israel.

Judith at Kesher Talk plays a little compare and contrast with Galloway’s response to Katrina, and the real needs and desires of those most affected by the storm:

I noted before how Galloway invoked Katrina (the Bush Regime’s shocking racism revealed by, the shame of troops in Iraq when they should be in New Orleans, the opulent Bush vacations, tax cuts for the rich instead of money for levees, etc etc etc.), along with almost every other hot button in the campus Left agenda. He also worked himself into a righteous froth over Barbara Bush’s Astrodome remark.

The student activist who introduced the event (which you can hear here, about a third of the way in) proudly announced some initiative – which had Galloway’s imprimatur – to send students down to Mississippi to help with Katrina relief. Coordinated with Veterans for Peace, but that’s just a coincidence, right? This is about helping poor black people oppressed by the Bushitler’s racism, not about forcing a connection between Katrina and Iraq, right? (Actually, my first thought was: you manipulative condescending do-gooders are about two weeks late, the Salvation Army and countless church groups and right-wing blog fundraising marathons have been helping way before you got your sorry act together.)

Just so…