Alex Massie (The Scotsman): Senators' sobriety gets a rude awakening

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Scotsman (Edinburgh)
Dated Wednesday May 18

Senators' stately sobriety gets a rude awakening
By Alex Massie

To British observers used to seeing the maverick parliamentarian in action, it may have been vintage Galloway. But for a Senate that styles itself as "the world’s greatest deliberative body", his performance must have come as something of a shock.

Truculent, bombastic, eloquent and wilfully disingenuous, Mr Galloway led his accusers on the US Senate sub-committee on investigations a merry dance.

The Senate has a reputation, many would say well earned, for ponderous and windy rhetoric. Snobbery is its lifeblood; stately sobriety its state of mind. Mr Galloway’s particular type of flamboyance would be considered the worst form of vulgar showboating in the Senate. Its members are not used to being accused of committing "schoolboy howlers" or to being lectured by witnesses and condemned for running a kangaroo court.

As Senator Norm Coleman summarised the evidence against Mr Galloway, the MP stared him down, challenging him to blink first. He did. That set the pattern for a hearing in which the MP’s accusers struggled to lay a glove on him.

Read more.

[knowbody0]

1. the whole world knows of this by now

he should be the peace movement's maSCOTT

[lala_rawraw]

2. Oil for food? what oil for food? who said that?

I bet that is the end of that story... now back to Bolton

[bemildred]

3. My, they are working hard to discredit him now, eh?

And after going to all that trouble to drag him over there.
It looks like he's going to get the same treatment Dean gets.
The one thing you will NOT see is a response to the arguments
he made, which were plenty clear enough.