George Galloway, the controversial British MP who excoriated the US Senate in May while defending charges that he had a hand in the oil-for-food cookie jar, luanched a US book tour Tuesday, Sept. 13 in Boston's Fanueil Hall.
Eagerly positioning himself alongside the ghosts of American revolutionaries, and likening himself to a persecuted parliamentarian named Fox, who opposed the British Crown in favor of the American colonies, Galloway labeled President George Bush the biggest recruiter for terrorism worldwide.
Issuing a call for an end to the British and US occupation of Iraq, Galloway blasted the Atlantic allies' foreign policy in Israel and stumped for book sales of Mr. Galloway Goes to Washington, his screed against the Iraq war and Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The crowd of 400 anti-war activists in Boston went wild at Galloway's condemnations of Bush-Blair. I have to admit he was rather entertaining.
What bothers me about Galloway is not his prescription for a foreign policy that creates less terrorists than it destroys, but his self-promoting bombast and shaky ethical credentials. Greg Palast exposes some unpleasant questions that Galloway neglected to speak of in Boston.
As Palast reports, the self-styled revolutionary Galloway sucked up to Saddam in 1994, when he told the brutal dictator, "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem."
Poor Galloway, after debating his blustering alter-ego in New York, Christopher Hitchens, he'll be hooking up with Jane Fonda on his US tour. Fonda, of course, is "Hanoi Jane" in many American eyes, for her own cozy posture with the Viet Cong.
With such a pair of tainted anti-war voices filling a void left by the complicit Democrats, the anti-war movement is failing to find a positive PR spokesperson to score points against the right.
The ideal spokesperson for the anti-war movement has a pure voice, whose motives and standing is unimpeachable. Who could such a spokesperson be?
Cindy Sheehan?
But wait: is the Bush-scorned mother of a slain soldier cashing in now, too?
A press release from PR Web Wednesday announced that Sheehan signed with Speaking Matters LLC, a speaker's bureau, whose clients also include Medea Benjamin of Code Pink. I wonder, how much money are anti-war speeches going for these days?
ed: JH
Article comments
1 - Shawn Redden
There were 1,200 people at the debate last night.
2 - Dave Nalle
Galloway is a caricature of himslef, a sort of evil clown who spouts leftist rhetoric to cover his base motives. I heard him on Air America yesterday and he's truly creepy.
I'd be interested in how the debate came out though. There's no question that Hitchens with his command of actual facts and clarity of vision will have destroyed him, but I'm curious if the leftists who experienced it will have the guts to admit it.
dave
3 - Bob A. Booey
Hitchens could destroy almost any media talking head on almost any topic of debate.
Why is everything EVIL now, Air America listener #1?
That is all.
4 - Dave Nalle
Babs, I see evil now because I've been listening to Randi Rhodes. She's like Limbaugh but without the jolly positive attitude.
Dave
5 - ss
And Jon Stewart destroyed Hitchens when he was on the Daily Show.
That said, Galloway has encouraged violent resistance to our occupation of Iraq. There's a lode of difference between pointing out the darker side of America's war on Sadam and actively encouraging people to blow up themselves and innocent people because your pissed off about it. Ditto for actually supporting Sadam.
He may not have recieved 'one thin dime', but he's still a crazy, hate driven bastard who should just shut the hell up.
Since he won't people should stop listening to him.
6 - Bob A. Booey
You find Rush jovial and positive now, Dave?
No wonder you've gone off the deep end lately :) Too much talk radio does that to a person's capacity for complexity of thought.
That is all.
7 - Nancy
By that definition, Goebbels was warm & fuzzy.
8 - Nancy
Get a grip, Dave: by that definition, Goebbels was warm & fuzzy.
9 - RJ
Galloway is worse than Michael Moore.
Moore doesn't understand the terrorists, and he attacks those who oppose them.
Galloway DOES understand the terrorists, and he SUPPORTS them anyway...
10 - Bob A. Booey
This hasn't been publicized much and you right-wing Internet blowhards can pop a cork based on this, but his unofficial opening act on this lecture tour has been none other than Jane Fonda herself. She's on the flyers advertising his speech in Chicago at Northwestern Law School.
That is all.
11 - tom
I saw Galloway at Faneuil Hall. It was one of the most american speeches I've heard in years. I know conservatives despise the truth, so most of the comments here are expected. But keep in mind, Thomas Jefferson would have loved Galloway's speech; and as a patiotic american (something nobody who supports the Iraq war can claim) I was proud to see such truth spoken at that historic hall.