Hitchens on Galloway ahead of his debate with him on Wednesday: “the “anti-war” movement has as its new star a man who is openly pro-war, but openly on the other side. A man who supported the previous oppressors of the region-the Soviet army in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq-who supports its current oppressors-Bashar Assad and his Lebanese proxies-and who still has time to endorse its potential future tyrants in the shape of the jihadists in Iraq and elsewhere. Galloway began his political life as a fifth-rate apologist for the Soviet Union, but he has now diversified into being an apologist for Stalinism, for fascism, and for jihadism all at once!”

And, as a reminder, Wolcott on Galloway late last year: “A hero for our time“