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

Certainly the extracts shown on the news made it look as though he went on the attck without really answering the charges. He may have made some good points, but it didn't make him any more appealling to me.

It is Headline news on both Foxnews.com and cnn.com

'he could drag the entire committee into court and demand his name is cleared'

Sadly not. I am presuming that a Senate committee works under the same privilege laws that courts in the UK do, eg. that you can say anything in court and not be held responsible for it at a later date. This is important, as otherwise persuading people to give evidence could be very difficult. If the case being tried collapses or the defendant is found not guilty, then any witnesses who had said they had definitely seen them committing the crime could be tried for slander or libel if they did not have this protection.

Oddly enough, though, I believe that if someone involved in a trial proposes marriage to someone else in the court and they accept the marriage is legally binding, since the transaction is taken down in the court recorder's notes, which are legal documents. I know this, as one of the famous American serial killers did this during his trial.


'Smells of raising his own profile by attacking an easy target'

I wouldn't call flying to the US to face a Senate committee 'attacking an easy target'. If he's made it look easy then they're either all hopelessly incompetent or there aren't any charges to answer. I'm not making any judgements which, though, as I haven't seen the footage.

Rivetting TV. No doubt.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4553601.stm

"This was not a wrestling match," Mr Coleman protested. "It wasn't a contest."

I've been hearing about this on the BBC WS all afternoon (00.00 GMT to 03.00 GMT) and they are delighted with the way Galloway acquitted himself! They had Connie Lawn (is she known in the UK?) on and she was pleased as well. To hear the World Service, GG trashed the committee. I can only say *yay*!!!

He didn't HAVE to go though did he? I don't trust him , but I reckon h did a good job in standing up to them. And some of his remarks hit home didn't they.

I realise attack is the best for of defense, but telling them that everything he had said about Iraq was right and everything they had said had proved wrong, and had cost 100,000 Iraqi lives and a specific number of US troops was a direct hit INHO.

Novo

Well lets not forget that GG was and is an apologist for Saddam. All the same you cannot castigate people for standing up for themselves and he did a good job of that.

Personally, I would vote for him tomorrow purely because he "Socked" it to the senate.

Yes I know its a single issue, but it was a single issue that gave him a seat in the last election. Anyway, anyone who has it in for Bushy and Bliar has got my vote hands down.

"I realise attack is the best for of defense, but telling them that everything he had said about Iraq was right and everything they had said had proved wrong, and had cost 100,000 Iraqi lives and a specific number of US troops was a direct hit INHO."

This from a man who is an apologist for a dictator responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands? Who has voiced approval for an insurgency that deliberately targets and murders Iraqi civilians? Who calls himself a 'socialist' yet attacks the Iraqi Left for working with the coalition? Who was kicked out the Labour party for desiring the victory of Saddam Hussein and the defeat of British forces (not for 'opposing the war with Iraq', a lie the Guardian keep repeating)?

Galloway may have scored a 'direct hit' against a hopeless US senate 'grilling' but there are innumerable shots to be taken back at him.

"Sadly not. I am presuming that a Senate committee works under the same privilege laws that courts in the UK do,"

I wasn't really thinking about what was said in the court itself but rather some of the briefings given both before and after the hearings which i don't think would be covered.
Particularly some of the statements which listed the ways they'd tried and supposedly failed to contact him.
Regardless of how badly GG has behaved or my personal opinions of him ~ i was glad to see him come off the way he did because i have deep reservations about the way these hearings seem to be going.Whilst his testimony may have been mostly good theatre rather than anything substantial it has focused attention on some of the methods being used by the committee.

This Gs person is a new hero to almost half of the truly attentive voters in the US, I am pretty sure. Like it or not, this US Congress needs to take some lessons in straight talk from this fellow. They do need lessons from someone who knows how to go on the offenseive, like Commons, maybe. Now, this GOP controlled committee will be trying to insinuate that Gs is not telling the truth, but it's much more difficult to do that when he has not been messing around with "the honorable" whosis, and the "my friend" whatsis, of which Senators are so fond. The Chair's first defense was to try to look as if he was not being addressed, and then to don arrogance, which he kept going until "help" arrived (somebody from "The GOP Talking Points Committee"?) for the rush of the press after adjournment. The GOP Chair of the Committee is charged with trying valiantly to keep any light from shining upon the culprits of the US stripe, who are up to their ears in this profiteering scam. This Gs is going to come out of this with a US following!

I found the most interesting part of this story the fact that in the words of the Beeb:

*Far from displaying the forelock-tugging deference to which senators are accustomed, Mr Galloway went on the attack.
He rubbished committee chairman Norm Coleman's dossier of evidence and stared him in the eye.*

His credibility wasn't the issue, he stood up to the McCarthy style accusations of the (sub)Committee and first asked for proof of their accusations and then for their aknowledgement of the falsehood of their previous suppositions. Whether he was involved in Food For Oil or even if that practice was far reaching doesn't detract from the previous claims of WMD and links to Al Quaida and 911 which led to the invasion and then were disproved. Poor intelligence is hardly an excuse unless it is referring to the intelligence of those who made the decisions.

I thought there was more than a fair share of 'insinuation amounting to accusation in the absense of proof.' Hence from the senate benches the broadswipes of being the bestman to Fawaz Zureikat and being "friendly" with Tariq Aziz. Circumstantial at best, irrelevant at worst.