Christopher Hitchens has a piece at the Telegraph on his debate with George Galloway: ‘Galloway is a hot, blustering bully - but I’m staying on his case until the very end.’

Having quoted Mr Galloway’s recent speech in Damascus (“The Syrian people are fortunate in having Bashar al-Assad as their leader”) and having further pointed out that Mr Assad decided not to show his face in New York last week, as the UN investigation into the murder of Rafik Hariri rolled up more and more Syrian agents, I was given a full answer by being told that I had metamorphosed back from a butterfly into a slug, with a consequent trail of slime in my wake. I did not have the lepidopteral presence of mind to point out, at that moment, that butterflies pupate from sturdy and furry caterpillars.

I reiterated my point that the Syrian people have no say in their own good fortune, since they inherit a Dauphin from an absolute monarch. That did me no good at all in some circles. What I should have done, I now realise, is to say that George Galloway knows all about slime because he’s so far inside the posterior passage of a murderous dictator that one can barely glimpse his Gucci buckles. That would have won me golden opinions. I suppose it would also have re-defined the old term “slug-fest”.

I have often wondered how a certain type of public figure manages to keep his fluttering stomach under control. To all appearances they somehow remain as cool - as Aunt Dahlia’s chef, Anatole, once phrased it - “as some cucumbers”.

Mr Galloway is hot and blustering rather than cool, and he may not have appreciated that I am staying with him until the very end of this argument, but he does manage to survive by making extraordinary claims and then moving on to the next appointment. When I asked him in public if he would deny having discussed oil-for-food allocations with Tariq Aziz in person, he said that he would sign such an affidavit right away if I had it on me. That boast is one that I shall give him the chance to make good upon, if he has a pen handy.

So on one hand we have a bipartisan Senate committee, and on the other we have a man with a big and dirty mouth. And the coverage splits the difference - quite often in the bigmouth’s favour. I don’t think this is completely explained by the way that the British press cowers before our restrictive and archaic libel laws - which do not apply in the United States. I believe that there is a sick and surreptitious fascination with people of a certain thuggish unscrupulousness, from Mike Tyson to Henry Kissinger, and that many press hacks have a secret vicarious love for such people.

UPDATE at 9/18/05 9:08:19 am:

Atlas Shrugs has a report on the debate, with photos.

And there’s another report at No Pasaran!