Hitchens vs Galloway

[Proletariat]

I didn't see this being discussed elsewhere, but I think there are Organs from both sides of the pond that will enjoy it.

It sounds like it was good fun for both sides.

It had been billed as "The Grapple in the Big Apple" and the long-awaited, much-anticipated debate between George Galloway MP and Christopher Hitchens proved just as bitingly personal and entertaining as expected. No quarter had been asked and none was given. Perhaps that was why the audience had to pass through metal directors before entering the sweltering theatre.

http://www.nationalreview.com/commen...0509160904.asp

In fact, both men tonight had waded into areas they would have better avoided. Galloway caused paroxysms saying the planes that slammed into the twin towers four years ago did not come out of "a clear blue sky". Rather it was the fault of the US and its foreign policies, especially on Israel. "I believe they emerged out of a swamp of hatred created by us", he said. "I believe that it's because of the total, complete unending and bottomless support for General Sharon's crimes against the Palestinian people."

Then there were the moments in the evening where Hurricane Katrina entered the hall. Galloway could not resist rehearsing the point, why send billions of dollars to Iraq when you can't help your own people in New Orleans? Foolishly, Hitchens then took it upon himself to defend President Bush and the Pentagon's post-Katrina clean-up. The White House, he said, had 200,000 soldiers to send to the devastated Gulf area after the hurricane, but wasn't able to until it got the say-so from state governors. That was the problem - it wasn't lack of compassion. Even more rashly, he castigated the left for making assumptions about the numbers of victims being disproportionately black "before the bodies were even identified". Sharp intake of breath from Ms King there, who briefly considers joining the Galloway camp.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...icle312968.ece

At the following site you may listen in.

http://kpftx.org/#galloway

I plan on listening to the debate in a few moments when I get home and then I'll weigh in with my own take on the score, how much I hate Galloway, and whether Hitchens did a decent job of trying to take him down a peg.

It sounds like it was fairly even from the above NRO article.

The audience, for their part, seemed unsure of who had triumphed. Michael Purzycki, a student at George Washington University, resplendent in a "Ban Che Guevara" t-shirt, admitted that even though he was a Hitchens partisan, "I can't say either of them won."

(Isn't that what ya say when your guy loses, though?)