1115.org

It’s not the accent, it’s not the mustache…must be his removal of Norm Coleman’s intestines.

I’ve always looked at the various investigations surrounding the U.N. Oil-for-Food program with mixed feelings. It was a deeply flawed program from day one with conflicts of interest on all sides leading to corruption seemingly without peer. Originally implemented to mitigate the crippling sanctions imposed on Iraq after Saddam Hussein refused to comply with U.N. directives, Oil-for-Food ended up lining the pockets of oil companies, U.N. officials and Saddam himself at the expense of Iraqi citizens who suffered in poverty before and under the program. Anytime there is a multi-national program controlling vast sums of money, the rules are going to be broken in the attempt to squeeze every last cent out of it. The lack of surprise however doesn’t eliminate the need to learn from failures, especially those on the scale of Oil-for-Food.

On the other hand, the multiple Congressional committees currently conducting inquiries into Oil-for-Food are at the very least misguided. The collective time they have spent looking into a years-over program, on top of internal U.N. reviews and a full investigation by former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Voelcker is certainly misspent. Rather than honestly looking to learn anything new, members of Congress have used the hearings as a smokescreen to obscure other events, punish the U.N.’s member nations for opposition to the Iraq war, and in Senator Norm Coleman’s (R-MN) case, grandstanding as a way of rehabilitating his reputation as one of the Senate’s dimmer bulbs.

Precisely because there are ongoing scandals that Congress should be busying itself with, we have not covered Oil-for-Food specifically, except to illustrate the irony of Fox News and (Republicans in general) clamoring for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s head. U.N. critics expect that Annan should be held accountable for things that happened on his watch while George W. Bush is allowed to blame subordinates, Bill Clinton, and the librulmedia for every single non-triumph of his reign.

Yet sometimes even after a de facto decision has been made to avoid adding another voice to a cacophony that serves to crowd out more pressing topics, current events and newly public information call for a measure of attention. Early Wednesday morning, Forager sent me a link to this story detailing exactly how much money U.S. oil companies were handing over to Saddam with tacit approval from the administration:

In fact, the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together. “The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions,” the report said. “On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales.

But it wasn’t clear until the good woman on the treadmill next to me changed the channel, apparently unable to stomach Barbara Walters and Meredith Viera talking about their clitorises (no, I’m not even remotely joking) on The View, that it was going to be irony day. As if my normal workout wasn’t enough, the channel surfing came to a halt on Fox News, which happened to be running the testimony of George Galloway, a British Member of Parliament accused by Senator Coleman and others of taking kickbacks related to Oil-for-Food. Coleman, only a Senator as a result of the tragic and untimely death of Paul Wellstone, may have made the mistake of his career by choosing to zero in on Galloway.

Politics is done a bit differently in the UK, and Coleman might have familiarized himself by watching Question Time on C-SPAN or maybe reading a book. Though not as vulgar as Big Time Dick Cheney’s floor manner, British MPs are coarse, combative and especially direct when it comes to asking and answering questions, a far cry from the “distinguished gentleman” nonsense seen in the Senate chamber. Galloway, appearing under no obligation and without immunity usually associated with such appearances, suffers no fools:

On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had ‘many meetings’ with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

“I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as “many meetings” with Saddam Hussein.

“As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.
[…]
That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government.”

(Full text / partial video)

When Coleman decided to pull Galloway’s name (and those of other officials from France and Russia) out of obscure Iraqi documents to drag through the mud, he probably didn’t expect to bear the brunt of such a pointed and impassioned defense. It’s not any great surprise that our corrupt and hypocritical administration allowed their backers to profit illegally only to accuse others of the same thing. That’s been their pattern since day one. The news here is that someone stood up and said “oh no you don’t” in crisp, clear language that abides the realities of soundbite journalism. When John Kerry was running for President he couldn’t help but lurch into Senate-speak, a vernacular composed of oral footnotes, references, sub-references, qualifiers, and other formulations that served only to spread narcolepsy to anyone within earshot. Galloway made every word count and blew Coleman out of the room.

“Now I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice.”

Standards have slipped, to far. From the law to the truth, to what it takes to be a Senator. Coleman is a pathetic example of the decline.