h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anyone watching it live. It is fascinating. I am not a particular fan of GG but credit to him for going over their to answer the charges and socking it to them in the process.

Fascinating.

And I must say the silences from the questioner are telling. It seems to me that GG has them on the run a bit.

What channel you watching this on?
Presuming you're UK

BBC News 24

to find digi remote

Well having watched it from start to finish now my conclusion is this.

It would seem to me to be a narrow victory to GG. If it was football it would have been 2-1 or 3-1 if you are being generous.

GG speech lambasted the ocmmitee and the US government. He scored points on the issue of being tried and found guilty without having a chance to defend himself.

I thought their claims to have invited him lacked any real credence. I also thought his speech about the lies pertaining to the start of the war made them all feel very uncomfortable.

Throughout most of the questioning it seemed to me to be pretty even, on the one hand GG was at times elusive and refused to answer questions. On the other hand just saying something is "Yes or No" does not *necessarily make it so.

Often answering "Yes or No" means you are given credence to an assumption in the question you just dont accept, then it is not possible to answer the question by any other method than attackng it. Having said that GG looses points for seeming elusive.

The commitee had made some huge howler on the evidence, I am pretty sure that in any codifed western law the defendant has to be given prior evidence to any documents used in evidence against them and the fact that half of all the sources he had never seen and had no opportunity to verify the veracity of made the commitee look amatuerish at best.

Like I said I am no big fan og GG, but I have to say he has gone up a bit in my estimation as a result of this if not by much. I bet any money though he is about to become sh*t loads more famous on the other side of the pond after that. I rather expect him to become a pin up hate boy for the right wing press.

I really do wonder how "fox" will report this.

It'll certainly have the spin doctors working overtime.
Wish i'd seen this from the start.
I hate saying it but GG has kind of grown on me ever since labour kicked him out and i think he did pretty well.Definitely 3-1.
Lets face it though i'm pretty sure if there had been any credible evidence Labour or the British press would have dug it up before now.
I honestly don't think the US actually expected him to turn up and defend himself at all.
I'd heard some of the invitation excuses earlier and they don't seem to have become any more believable.

I ma pretty sure it will be tackled in two ways.

The hostile press will focus on his pointed refusal to ansqwer direct q's "Yes or No"

The sympathetic press will focus on his lambasting of the war lies, the amatuerishness of the way the commitee dealt with him and the long silences where the committee members were clearly lost for words.

Yeah deffo, if they had any real evidence like say bank accounts showing GG with £10,000,000 then they would have jumped on him.

The fact that they were singularly unable to provide anything like that made them look damn stupid in my eyes. I bet they wish they had left him out now, not least because he will be a minor anti war celebrity in the states as well now.

That was the most riveting piece of television I've seen in years (well, at least since Celebrity Filth Peninsula last night). Although seemingly elusive, Georgeous was actually answering the questions in his roundabout way. It was telling that Senator Levin cut him off numerous times just before he got to his point to ask different questions and ended with "It's clear to me that you're not going to answer my question" at the same time as Galloway said a very clear "no".

He has defninitely gone up in my estimations since watching that and I think that he came out of it the clear victor. He will, however, become a hate-figure for America's Right. Expect many more groundless accusations (and many lawsuits from George, whatwith his famed litigiousness).

Now wouldn't that be fun ~ he could drag the entire committee into court and demand his name is cleared.
Got to wonder if anyone from that side of the pond did any serious research into GG before they started this.

"Like I said I am no big fan og GG, but I have to say he has gone up a bit in my estimation as a result of this if not by much. I bet any money though he is about to become sh*t loads more famous on the other side of the pond after that. I rather expect him to become a pin up hate boy for the right wing press.

I really do wonder how "fox" will report this."

Don't allow your prejudices to overwhelm you and see Galloway as heroic just because the American right hate him. Remember his speech to Saddam Hussein. Remember the people murdered by the regime. Remember Galloway's dismissal of Iraqi trade unionists murdered by the insurgency. Just because Galloway might become a hate-figure for the American right doesn't mean the left should sympathise with him.

"Yeah deffo, if they had any real evidence like say bank accounts showing GG with £10,000,000 then they would have jumped on him."

Apparently, Galloway has moved papers pertaining to the funding of a charity he set up (which apparently also funded his trips to Iraq & the Middle East and his recent campaign in the UK) out of the country and has not made the full details of his finances public despite promising to two years ago. It's quite possible to hide bank accounts and funds from prying eyes. Dictators and crooked businessmen have been doing it for years.

Galloway isn't stupid. He's determined to present himself as the plucky crusader confronting an evil empire. Look at the man's pas and "Don't believe the hype" as a wise man once said.

I think the first sentance of the qoute of mine you qouted shows I havn't done this.

Like I said I dont think much of him. But the fact that he has done this does raise him in my opinion.

I see what you are saying Zagreb, but I stand by the point. If GG had stashed away loads of money they would have nailed him.

If not in the commitee then certainly here. GG is a bit of a git, but so is the right wing establishment.

Allthough I agree it is a dangerous thing to sobscribe to the "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" theory.

"I see what you are saying Zagreb, but I stand by the point. If GG had stashed away loads of money they would have nailed him."

Look at what I said again. Crooked businessmen and dictators have been 'disappearing' or concealing money for decades. It's far from impossible that a British politician with links to a dictator and friends in the Middle East could do the same.

As regards your comments about 'the right wing establishment', I believe there are democrats at this hearing too. And the corruption of the 'Oil for food' deal is hardly a rightwing concern.

It's also worth noting that the ex-minions of the former Iraqi regime who supposedly made these claims accuse him of concealing the money in the accounts of his charity. The very accounts he won't make public.

And don't be taken in my Galloway's performance of righteous self-confidence. Remember that former Tory minister who sued the Guardian for libel and angrily railed against 'bent and twisted journalism' and promised to defend himself with the 'trusty sword of truth'. He looked at the time like an innocent man wronged. And he was lying the whole time.

Incidentally, I'm not saying that I think Galloway is definitely guilty. since even a dictator's apologist can be accused of falsehoods. I don't understand why the US would persue Galloway, though. He has no real credibility with the British left which is why he's ended up siding himself with that vestige of the British totalitarian-left the Socialist Workers Party and he certainly has no credibility internationaly. Certainly, there are far more 'dangerous' anti-coalition voices in the UK than Galloway that aren't being accused of anything.

Indeed and I do see your point mate.

However I still belive (at least unless proven otherwise) there is something hounerable about what he did in standing up to the committee. Now if he is lying then fine villify him in the same way as the Tory Mp (are we talking Aitken or Archer BTW?). But insofar as the charges against him appear "spurious" then good on him for taking those on.

It does not vindicate him of all the things I hold against him, but microcosmically I respect what he has done here.

"I don't understand why the US would persue Galloway, though. He has no real credibility with the British left which is why he's ended up siding himself with that vestige of the British totalitarian-left the Socialist Workers Party and he certainly has no credibility internationaly. Certainly, there are far more 'dangerous' anti-coalition voices in the UK than Galloway that aren't being accused of anything."

Erm, I'd hardly call the present Labour government 'The British Left'... and if he has no credibility how the heck did he get himself elected?


I can quite understand why they'd attack Galloway... No, he's not 'dangerous' but he sure is an easy target... To me it looks suspiciously like they're attacking everyone and anything that looks remotely guilty _outside_ of the USA... And an independent MP who stands for everything the US government doesn't and who has contacts in Iraq and doesn't have the support of a large political organisation or, even worse, of TB's government sure makes a good smokescreen. Notice only the Democratic members of that committee have actually said that the US might well be partially culpable in this matter.

I don't really know much about the guy or the situation, but the couple of extracts of his speeches I've seen are very propagandistic, if that's a word. Smells of raising his own profile by attacking an easy target and attempting to deflect the blame onto his accusers. There's no new material and its being used in an offensive rather than a structured argumentative way.