It’s weblog gridlock here at Armavirumque as everyone is placing bets on this Wednesday’s main event. We’ll be ringside, just blocks from Stanford White’s old Madison Square Garden, at Mason Hall at the Baruch College Performing Arts Center for the debate between George Galloway and Christopher Hitchens, the bout we first reported on here.
So what do the oddsmakers say?
Don’t expect a fair fight. Galloway has covered all the angles by setting the conditions of the evening. (Memo to Homeland Security: has anyone checked into Galloway’s money trail? Here’s a start: The New Press, The Center for Economic Research and Social Change, International Socialist Review, and the National Council of Arab Americans.)
Refereeing the event will be Amy Goodman, host of the radical-left Pacifica Radio show Democracy Now. Weblog readers may remember we last encountered Ms. Goodman in April at the symposium ’Is there a New Blacklist?’
Then there’s Galloway himself. Below the Belt Galloway, as they say. On his website, Hitchens has posted two stat sheets on his challenger, and there is nothing sexed up in the dossier of this Hussein loving MP. The Left is banking on Galloway. Here’s our paper of record, Socialist Worker. Meanwhile, Brian Lehrer will have a pre-bout interview with Galloway on his NPR show Wednesday morning. Tom Lapin is wondering "how Galloway manages to get through US immigration with such impunity." (Funny, we’ve been wondering the same thing.) The Times of London and the Guardian have picked up on the grumble rumble, as has Page Six. Even Time Out is getting in the act, featuring an interview with Galloway on its back page this week.
Weblog chatter is high on all sides, from Snark Smith and Roger L. Simon and The American Spectator to Spike Magazine.
Here’s what we know, come Wednesday: Galloway will be oiled up. Hitchens will be liquored up. The rest will be fight history. Tickets are sold out, so if you can’t make it ringside, be sure to follow this live webcast.
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