Whuppin'
A couple of weeks back, when Norm Coleman and George Galloway went mano a mano in the Senate, some of the more credulous elements of the left claimed a Galloway victory.
"Time will tell", I replied.
Time, I think, is telling; Clinton Taylor shows how one blogger may have caught Galloway in a bit of perjury:
During the hearing (which, though not released by the Senate, has been transcribed here), Senator Norm Coleman pressed Mr. Galloway about his links to Saddam crony, Oil-for-Food beneficiary, and super-rich businessman Fawaz Zureikat, who was a major donor to Mr. Galloway's Mariam Appeal charity. Did Galloway know Zureikat was trading oil for Saddam? Mr. Galloway responded that
Not only did I know that, but I told everyone about it. I emblazoned it in our literature, on our Web site, precisely so that people like you could not later credibly question my bona fides in that regard. So I did better than that. I never asked him if he was trading in oil. I knew he was a big trader with Iraq, and I told everybody about it.
On his website? Well, the Mariam Appeal site (www.Mariamappeal.com) is long gone, the domain name snapped up by Internet squatters, so we'll just have to take Mr. Galloway's word for it, right?
Not quite. There's this nifty thing called the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (here), which takes "snapshots" of websites over time. It works a little like Google's vast searchable cache, sending out an automated "webcrawler" that remembers the HTML code of the sites it encounters. Brand-new blogger George Gooding at Seixon.com used it to find the snapshots of the old Mariam Appeal site and verify whether Zureikat's identity was, in fact, emblazoned thereon.
Gooding's report says of the July 2001 snapshot "...at this point in time, there is absolutely no mention of Mr. Zureikat or any other donors to the organization at all." Zureikat does make an appearance on the Mariam Appeal site, however. He was named as a contact within the National Mobilization Committee on Defense of Iraq (NMCDI) for the "Rebuilding Baghdad Library" book drive. There is no mention made of his business relationship with Iraq. (This page was not there on April 1, 2001, but was there on a subsequent snapshot taken the next day. So we know when Zureikat's name was added to Mariam Appeal's site.)
Why does it matter?
WHY SHOULD WE CARE about Mr. Galloway's website said about Mr., er, Chairman Zureikat? Because by identifying Mr. Zureikat as a beneficiary of, rather than a donor to, the Mariam Appeal's charity, it looks like Galloway knew how shady his true relationship with Zureikat was, so he tried to disguise it.
But when confronted about this by Senator Coleman, Mr. Galloway switched his story again, claiming that he had been completely open all along. George Gooding, the blogger, suspects that Galloway may have underestimated the long memory of the Internet and figured that this prevarication would pass undetected.
Posted by Mitch at
May 30, 2005 10:00 AM
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Mitch, you are in so far over your head that you don't even know it!
Coleman's "evidence" against Galloway is a single, forged document. BTW: Texas Billionaires were the primary beneficiaries of the Oil for Food Program. I need to say this because people like you tend to obscure any facts that don't roll up into your agenda. I might add that the Oil for Food thing operated with the full knowledge of the US government. The only reason they're getting huffy about it now is because they're looking to get rid of Koffi Annan. You remember him. The guy who said the US had no good reason to invade Iraq.
He was right.
Bush and Blair lied about everything.
Very cute of you to try to obscure this uncomfortable little fact with your petty faux_Powerline "investigation" from the comfort of your office chair.
Lightweights like you will never make a dent in the world of adult discourse. Reach up and touch the bottom, Mitch.
Posted by: blogesota at May 30, 2005 02:20 PMUnfortunately, absence of evidence is no proof.
Posted by: hopifiend at May 30, 2005 08:41 PMBlogesota,
I've made a bigger impact on "Adult communication" than you ever will, you silly anonymous little crank.
Time will tell - sooner than later, I suspect - re Galloway.
You talk a big game...no, actually, you talk a petty, snarky little game, with nothing to show but a raft of junior-high snarks.
"In over my head?" Pfft. Anonymous cranks are always the biggest talkers.
Posted by: mitch at May 30, 2005 09:00 PMIt's interesting to me, Blogsore (and by "interesting" I mean "an utterly predictable rapid change of subject paired with the usual witless slur against the person you're attempting to smack down") that you seem to just *know* that Mitch doesn't care if Texas oilmen benefited from Oil For Food. I'd be interested (and by "interested" I mean "utterly amazed") if you were to provide evidence of that attitude on Mitch's part.
Here's a clue: just because he's writing about Galloway in this post doesn't mean that Mitch is disinterested in all other aspects of the case. However, not every post is required to cover every aspect of the scandal, nor is every blogger, and the absence of wider coverage is a limitation of the medium which it's stupid to blame on a particular blogger. Maybe you could develop your own information and share it (just blurting it out in a comment thread doesn't really count, sorry.)
I want the UN held to account for this breach of its duty, and the fullest possible extent of the law brought to bear on all those who skimmed from it. Even if it's a Texas Oilman - I'm sure there are some giant street puppets of that archetype just longing for another day in the sun.
Posted by: Brian Jones at May 30, 2005 09:10 PMGee...the Oil-for-Food scam/program started when?
During the CLINTON administration. Right? I guess Janet Reno had better things to do, like burn compounds in Texas or deport a little boy to a septic tank of a country.
If some oil men in Texas are involved....lets drag 'em in too. I didn't read a SINGLE word in this article that says Texas would be ignored. But...as a standard liberal blog-hack....its all Halliburton, all the time.
Posted by: Dave at May 31, 2005 08:59 AMThe only reason they're getting huffy about it now is because they're looking to get rid of Koffi Annan. You remember him. The guy who said the US had no good reason to invade Iraq.
He was right.
True, but Annan's no saint. His silence during the Rwanda tragedy was more than a little unfortunate.
Mitch--Army recruitment is way down. Any chance we can get you on Our Team. You continue to support Our Great And Glorious War Against Some Brown People (Iraq), right? So, why haven't you enlistet yet. Go ahead, tell us. Jonah Goldberg did.
Posted by: Something Polish at May 31, 2005 10:43 PMThe only reason they're getting huffy about it now is because they're looking to get rid of Koffi Annan. You remember him. The guy who said the US had no good reason to invade Iraq.
He was right.
True, but Annan's no saint. His silence during the Rwanda tragedy was more than a little unfortunate.
Mitch--Army recruitment is way down. Any chance we can get you on Our Team. You continue to support Our Great And Glorious War Against Some Brown People (Iraq), right? So, why haven't you enlistet yet. Go ahead, tell us. Jonah Goldberg did.
Posted by: Something Polish at May 31, 2005 10:44 PM