George Galloway, friend and idol to the lefties at the BBC, has had his back scratched again, either intentionally or through incompetence, in today’s reporting of his court case against The Daily Telegraph.
BBC News Online’s story the full quote is “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability” – note that crucial word ‘Sir’ at the beginning – the word that implies almost conclusively that the reference is to Saddam specifically rather than his long-suffering people.
I suppose it is possible that The Telegraph’s legal team omitted that part of the film clip in court, but I suspect it’s far more likely that it was omitted by the BBC in their report. Would anyone from BBC News Online care to comment?
To be fair, we also need to see the few sentences that Galloway spoke before displaying his skill at fawnmanship.
If he had, in fact, been talking about the Iraqi people, then things become ambiguous because the “Sir” may or may not indicate he was addressing Saddam specifically.
Selective editing, though, is one of the several last refuges of scoundrels and should not obscure the importance of Galloway’s actions vis-a-vis Saddam, regardless of whatever he may have said on that occasion.
But, even if someone finds a pot of gold dinars in Galloway’s basement with a birthday card inscribed “Love, Saddam”, we can expect the Beeb and its cohorts to continue beating this particular drum.
It sounds pretty conclusive to me. The above commentator (well meaning) can’t pretend the BBC accidently removed the “Sir” if the Telegraph had let it remain in the clip.
This reminds me of John Malkovitch’s astounding and beautiful comment regarding Galloway and Fisk (who is now officially bin Laden’s favourite Western journalist – straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak).
Pretty conclusive to me, too, but who the “your in “Sir, I salute your…” is in reference to remains ambiguous unless we know what he’d said just before that. If he’d been exclaiming about the wonderfulness of the Iraqi people, then Galloway could credibly claim he was not referring to Saddam.
That’s not to forgive the BBC’s editing. Certainly, without the context of the preceding bits, omitting “Sir” changes the likely interpretation of the quote just enough to tilt the reader toward believing Galloway’s version is plausible.
They also cut out the portion of the video where Galloway drops to his knees and performs fellatio on Saddam. I’m serious.
Shakespeare on Galloway
“Thou idol of idiot worshippers”
I’ve always been amazed by Galloways ego. He truelly believes that he is a political big shot. Just listen to his ranting.
This illusion of self importance (very much of the walter mitty variety) is probably why he likes to be pictured beside or associated with ‘powerful’ figures’ (like the soviets, Saddam etc).
He is about as significant as Rolf Harris.
I think that is unfair to Rolf Harris
Galloway isn’t contesting the documents are real? You would hope that would assure he loses this case.