Greg Palast is an unrepentant liberal writer currently working in Britain for both the BBC and The Observer. One of his claims to fame is a best selling book about how George Bush stole the Presidential elections in both 2000 and 2004. When Palast states bluntly that British MP George Galloway is “just another self-promoting fart”, you would think the Madison progressive movement would understand they have been duped.
What's Left? Progressives vs. Ourselves: The Honorable Member of Britain's House of Commons has become the new love-child of American progressives for his in-your-face accusations about our own government's mendacity in sending our troops to war in Iraq. I myself quoted Galloway with admiration. But the man who saluted the "courage" of Saddam Hussein in 1994, who today can't and won't account for nearly a million dollars in income and expenditures for a charity he founded to buy medicine for Iraqi children is not, friends, the best choice as our anti-war spokesman.Of course since The Capital Times, The Progressive and the UW Madison are sponsoring Galloway’s diatribe in Madison this evening, Capital Times Editor John Nichols is still pimping him like he is some social justice superstar.
Galloway's Frankness Invigorates, Shocks Americans: Galloway, who will appear at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Wisconsin Union Theater on the UW-Madison campus, became an instant hero to many opponents of the U.S. occupation of Iraq when the previously little-known member of the British Parliament flew to Washington to appear before the Senate's Permanent Committee on Investigations.So while Nichols is attaching the credibility of the Capital Times to this British firebrand, the English Left who know him best are asking why a British MP is touring America in the first place. Again, from the British reporter Greg Palast:
Where did this guy come from? Who invited him here? The answer: US Senate REPUBLICANS. As Cindy Sheehan was gathering public sympathy as the Gold Star mom against the killing in Iraq, the Republican Party decided to import an easier target to pummel. So they brought over the "I-salute-your-courage, Saddam" religious fundamentalist crack-pot who can't tell us where the money went.Hey John Nichols, you’ve just been punked by the Republicans.
