You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Home Front: Culture Wars
US tour beckons for Galloway
2005-05-23
HIS bristling, chest-out performance at the usually soporific US Senate last week gave Americans their first taste of political debate, Dundee-style. Now, it appears, the United States wants more of the indefatigable 'Gorgeous' George Galloway. The maverick Respect MP is being offered a potentially lucrative lecture circuit deal in the US following his appearance before the Senate's permanent select subcommittee on investigations. Galloway's compelling and memorable rebuttal of accusations that he profited from the Iraq Oil-for-Food programme led to him being contacted immediately afterwards by American promoters. They believe Galloway's bombastic rhetoric could electrify campuses across the country.

While the details have not yet been finalised, the deal could see Galloway making appearances at America's Ivy League universities, including Harvard, Princeton and Yale. Galloway could expect to command a fee of around £5,000 per lecture on current rates, to add to the £140,000 he already earns through his MP's salary and as a newspaper columnist. A spokesman for Galloway confirmed: "He is being asked to do a lecture tour in the States which will be done pretty quickly. We were called by a promoter in the USA. If it happens, he will do a series of paid-for lectures, but he will also do some free ones as well."

The deal is just one spin-off from the former Glasgow Kelvin MP's performance last week, which brought him to the attention of the world for the first time, provoking admiration and horror in equal measure. Galloway's Westminster office was deluged with nearly 3,000 e-mails within 24 hours of his appearance before the committee. He received requests for contributions from media outlets across the world, including Bulgaria, Italy and New Zealand. In the US, his performance at the usually sedate Senate hearing drew gasps and giggles of astonishment. The episode has now considerably raised Galloway's profile, especially in the USA, greatly increasingly his earning power. One media commentator in Washington last week commented: "It was the best tongue-lashing since US Army counsel Joseph Welch excoriated Senator Joseph McCarthy over his witch hunt directed at one of Welch's law firm associates who had been a member of the Lawyer's Guild: 'You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?'"
Posted by:Seafarious

#15  (Blushing) Many thanks TW. I think I learned that from reading British aviation mags when I was a kid. Characters like William Green and Bill Gunston are unknown outside the aero realm but they could have written for anyone (and Gunston still can at age 79). Bill Gunston, incidentally, is a great supporter of Israel. His first serious aviation job, and the adventure of a lifetime, was helping South African swashbuckler Boris Senior smuggle an amazing assortment of aircraft to the infant IDF in 1948. Early in the war of independence, Gunston flew a new Beech Bonanza from Johannesburg to Haifa, clear across Africa, and turned it over to the IDF. He made the final leg by the simple if outrageous expedient of filing a fake flight plan for Cyprus and landing in the enemy capital of Cairo to refuel. He was a Brit with a South African registered plane and the Egyptians apparently didn't suspect a thing. He then disappeared at wave top level and headed for Israel. The little plane was rigged with bomb racks and machine guns and was later shot down by Egyptian AAA.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2005-05-23 23:17  

#14  A.C., I sit here awed by your eloquence.
Posted by: trailing wife   2005-05-23 21:54  

#13  :)
Posted by: Shipman   2005-05-23 11:43  

#12  "...Next day you couldn't hear nothing around that town but how splendid that show was. House was jammed again that night, and we sold this crowd the same way. When me and the king and the duke got home to the raft we all had a supper; and by and by, about midnight, they made Jim and me back her out and float her down the middle of the river, and fetch her in and hide her about two mile below town.

The third night the house was crammed again -- and they warn't new-comers this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights. I stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in had his pockets bulging, or something muffled up under his coat -- and I see it warn't no perfumery, neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four of them went in..."

-Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Posted by: Seafarious   2005-05-23 11:16  

#11  ;-)
Posted by: .   2005-05-23 11:07  

#10  Yeah! We've hung brits before, y'know.

Mostly Toffs, but what the hell. We're inclusive.
Posted by: mojo   2005-05-23 10:35  

#9  Now, now, people. Please show some tolerance and enlightened thought when Galloway comes to this Evil Empire of ours to speak. He will undoubtedly draw piously enthusiastic crowds at such progressive venues as Berkeley and the Columbia chapter of Lesbians for Peace and Justice.
If he shows up in your community, please extend him every courtesy due a distinguished visitor, show our tolerance and enlightenment by listening patiently to his dissident but sincerely expressed views, praise him afterward for his sagacity and moral vision and ensure that he is the center of attention at the tasteful gathering of cognoscenti that will surely follow. Then hang him.

Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2005-05-23 10:08  

#8  George Galloway, like Michael Moore, is a tax on ignorance.

I'm stealin' it!
Posted by: BH   2005-05-23 10:06  

#7  Most excellent. What we want is for him to subject himself to jurisdiction in as many red states as possible. Also, encourage him to raise his right hand before taking the podium.
Posted by: Matt   2005-05-23 09:41  

#6  Does he have to pay taxes on that income in the U.S. as well as the U.K.? And if he doesn't, can the I.R.S. demand all of his financial records for the last ten years?
Posted by: trailing wife   2005-05-23 08:08  

#5  I think it's time somebody looks into Ivy League Tyrant Supporters Speaking Tour and Money Laundering Conduit. This is just a system of paying legal bribes to those who support the overthrow of the US. Time to take a good look and shut it down.
Posted by: 2b   2005-05-23 07:55  

#4  Except that the rest of us have to cover their bets.
Posted by: Fred   2005-05-23 07:47  

#3  George Galloway, like Michael Moore, is a tax on ignorance. If people want to pay it, let them. Its no skin off my nose.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-05-23 07:12  

#2  All proceeding according to plan. Next: arrange for Galloway to speak in front of pro-Israel Democrat groups in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and ask Hillary Clinton to join him on the stage.
Posted by: Karl Rove   2005-05-23 01:09  

#1  Mr Galloway might want to see if he's to be arrested, or subpeonaed (spelling?) for further questioning by the Senate before he goes gallivanting around the U.S. On the other hand, so long as he is gallivanting, he is still on American soil, and can easily be found if he is recalled for further questioning. An amusing little dilemma.
Posted by: trailing wife   2005-05-23 00:49  

00:00