XDA

Warhawk leftist Christopher Hitchens and true soul of the New Left George Galloway had a sort of debate last week at Baruch College in NY, NY, which was broadcast on C-SPAN 2 just a bit ago. I say sort of debate because it certainly paled in comparison to the Lincoln-Douglas standard (way too much ad hominem, really mean ad hominem attack), but beat whatever our Presidential candidate debates have become (the listing of which possibilities certainly does not include a debate). That the most able spokesmen, pro and con, for the war in Iraq are British subjects or at least British born, ought to give us pause about the state of secondary education in this country. It was great fun, particularly the 'trash talk' before and the ad hominem during, some of which is the title of this piece.

I am not an impartial judge, but I though Hitchens carried the debate easily. He actually alluded to facts. Both men took great pains to point out that the other was a hypocrite and had said different things in the past. Hitchens seems a true lefty (still a Trotskyite, I believe) but he happens to have clear vision on the proper choice between bad (renewed Gulf War) and more bad, letting Saddam Hussein continue as fascist dictator of Iraq. Galloway has sufficient vision to see the difficult choice but makes the wrong decision. Now that the greatest evil of communism is defeated, overthrowing dictators is good, appeasing them is bad. Why can't the majority of the left see that?

Galloway made two extraordinary errors and was roundly booed for them by the mainly lefty audience. He blamed us for the 9/11 attacks and he let his anti-Semite (or at least his anti-Israel) feelings show. Generally he was wrong-headed and fatuously ignorant of history.