The London Times claims today that George Galloway was the winner "on points" in his battle with the US Senate sub-committee the other day according to the US press. The Times could well be right, but what struck me later when I thought about it is that the two Senators who asked the questions, Coleman and Levin, didn't much care. And, for the most part, neither did the press. Galloway was not front page news that I saw and not the subject of acres of news print or any opinion pieces.
Galloway is a nobody in the US. Only the politically obsessed have ever heard of him. The Senators didn't target Galloway in their report because he was clearly not really the focal point of what they were about. For the most part they couldn't have cared less about him.
The Senate found his name on a few documents and published his name along with others. Galloway has never been in government or a position of real authority and the Senators were never really interested in him. I think this explains why the wind seemed to go out of Galloway's sails near the end of the exchange. I think he realized that he just wasn't important enough for the Senators to care whether the report was strictly accurate with reference to him or not.
They humored him for a few minutes and then he was 'dismissed'. He arrived home to a hero's welcome, but let's face it—the average American has no idea who Galloway is and doesn't know anything about his testimony on Tuesday.
