Standing Up for Himself

Someone asked me how I felt about the Galloway statement delivered to the Senate the other day (as reported in The Times Online)

I'll put up two quotes which I think capture the tenor of the statement pretty accurately:

"Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

So how do I feel about this? I feel appalled that this man should be publicly accused of being involved in the oil-for-food scandal. I feel astonished that it seems very clear that the only reason his name was brought into the investigation was to discredit a man who so obviously disagrees with U.S. policies and U.S. actions. I also feel quite delighted that he had the nerve, the confidence to stand up for himself and declare the truth as publicly as he could, instead of cowering in fear at the behemoth that is our country. Mostly, though, I'm angry, shamed, and surprised that this kind of smear attempt got so far that his public denial was necessary. Deep down I'm so naive.