IN THE AUDIENCE

An e-mail from a reader who witnessed the big fight:

I am surprised that there are people who feel Galloway was the victor. Yes he did have a large portion of the crowd crowing, but alas, it was his speaking event and, further, staffed by his people. When people in the audience would shout out to quite Hitchens the staff wouldn't move, but on the two occasions when the 65 year-old gentleman sitting in front of me shouted out "Answer the question" during Galloway's time, numerous staff members mobilized to instruct the gentleman to quiet down or he would be removed. Typical liberal thought police thuggery is all it was...

Galloway made only one or two salient points over the course of the evening. Debating with [him] must be as frustrating as arguing with your girlfriend. No matter what point you make it always goes back to the girl you fooled around with in 1994.

UPDATE: James Kirchik, reviewing the event for the American Enterprise, wanted to hear more about one subject in particular:

Despite Hitchens’ best effort, there was little discussion of the actual topic that made Galloway famous in the United States: his alleged taking of bribes from Saddam Hussein. Though Galloway has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, it is an issue, according to Hitchens, that is “going to haunt him on every stop of this tour and all the way back to England and everywhere he goes to raise the flag of Jihad in the Middle East.” From the esteemed MP for Damascus, one should expect to hear little more than zoo noises in response.

In National Review Online Alex Massie likens GG to "Michael Moore with a moustache and a Scots brogue."  The Financial Times says the insults cancelled each other out: "They had fired their big guns and they had fizzled."

If you want to decide for yourself, you can tune in to C-SPAN2 or Radio 4 tonight.

UPDATE: Ah, the joys of left-wingery in New York. Andrew Anthony's dispatch in the Observer (via Norm) contains this choice scene:

"This country is the most evil empire the world has ever known," announced Bill Mann, a short stocky man with a flat nose and a Brooklyn accent that made Tony Curtis sound like Gregory Peck. Mann informed me with unshakeable confidence that there would not be a single Hitchens supporter in the audience. "I support Hitchens," said David Katz, a rather lugubrious-looking character standing directly behind Mann. Suddenly a street-corner argument was served up like an undercard bout before the main event. Mann presented his thesis that America had killed more people than any other nation and that the Soviet Union liberated Europe. "Yeah, tell that to the Poles, and the Czechs and the Romanians," said Katz, as he defended America's global record on fighting for freedom. Katz's speech did not go down well with the crowd and one woman, who told me that she was a 'progressive egalitarian humanist', became so exasperated that she stormed off. "It's OK,' explained Katz, 'that's my wife."

Comments

[Yehudit]

"When people in the audience would shout out to quite Hitchens the staff wouldn't move, but on the two occasions when the 65 year-old gentleman sitting in front of me shouted out "Answer the question" during Galloway's time, numerous staff members mobilized to instruct the gentleman to quiet down or he would be removed. Typical liberal thought police thuggery is all it was..."

I experienced this personally. I yelled out something once, and an usher came up IMMEDIATELY and told me I would be escorted out of the hall if I did it again, meanwhile the ageing hippie Galloway fans had been yelling things since the debate began.

I pointed this out, and the guy sitting in front of me told the usher I had been yelling repeatedly, which was a lie. He told the usher I was "unstable." It was farcical. but Hitch did very well and there were many of us in the audience cheering him on.