Cynical Nation

When new allegations concerning George Galloway's complicity in the Oil-for-food scandal surfaced a few days ago, I'll confess that I paid less attention than the story deserved. Galloway long ago reached his nadir in my view, and it seemed impossible for him to sink any lower in my estimation no matter what he embezzled, so the story didn't seemed of little significance.

I have to say, however, the evidence looks pretty bad.

--Galloway personally solicited and was granted eight oil allocations totaling 23 million barrels from the Hussein government from 1999 through 2003;

--Galloway's wife, Dr. Amineh Abu-Zayyad, received approximately $150,000 in connection with one allocation of oil;

--Galloway's political campaign, the Mariam Appeal, received at least $446,000 in connection with several allocations granted under the Oil-for-Food Program;

--Illegal "surcharge" payments in excess of $1.6 million were paid to the Hussein regime in connection with the oil allocations granted to Galloway and the Mariam Appeal; and

--Galloway knowingly made false or misleading statements under oath before the Subcommittee at its hearing on May 17, 2005.

Here's more from Chris Hitchens:

For George Galloway, however, the war would seem to be over. The evidence presented suggests that he lied in court when he sued the Daily Telegraph in London over similar allegations (and collected money for that, too). It suggests that he lied to the Senate under oath. And it suggests that he made a deceptive statement in the register of interests held by members of the British House of Commons. All in all, a bad week for him, especially coming as it does on the heels of the U.N. report on the murder of Rafik Hariri, which appears to pin the convict's badge on senior members of the Assad despotism in Damascus, Galloway's default patron after he lost his main ally in Baghdad.

Yet this is the man who received wall-to-wall good press for insulting the Senate subcommittee in May, and who was later the subject of a fawning puff piece in the New York Times, and who was lionized by the anti-war movement when he came on a mendacious and demagogic tour of the country last month.

And then my favorite bit, which inspired this post's headline:

I wonder if any of those who furnished him a platform will now have the grace to admit that they were hosting a man who is not just a pimp for fascism but one of its prostitutes as well.

Yeah, but who cares? He may be a dictator-loving Stalinist felon, but at least he embarrassed Norm Coleman and that's the important thing, right?

(Hat tip: John Cole)