It was minutes before Galloway's Senate performance in May when he had his now famous run-in with Christopher Hitchens on the street. Hitchens, the Vanity Fair columnist and renegade from the left with a new career defending the 2003 invasion of Iraq, berated Galloway for his anti-war stance and his past ties to Saddam Hussein, upon which the MP called him "a drink-soaked former Trotskyite popinjay".
Such insults should not be left unattended, or so thought Hitchens, who subsequently challenged Galloway to join him in a public debate at a time and venue of his choosing...............



[...]


No one is more intrigued - or perhaps more appalled - by the event than the woman two seats to my left, Oona King. She, of course, is the former Labour candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow who knows first hand what it is like to go up against the barking Galloway. Some of us are imagining that Hitchens, a man of no small intellectual rigour, will surely get the better of the man from Dundee tonight. But perhaps Oona knows better. She whispers something to me about Galloway being "brilliant". Oh dear.


[..]


Hitchens begins in earnest, depicting the kind of world we would live in if the pacifists got their way. From the reactions around us, it seems he might have a good third of the hall in his pocket; he should do fine.It is still not quite clear to me at what point exactly Hitchens jumped the rails. Much later in the night, when Hitch and I and a few others have repaired to a friend's loft in SoHo, I attempt something of a post-mortem with him. Is there anything, I dare to wonder, that he perhaps wishes in hindsight he hadn't said to Galloway? Has he any regrets from the evening? Of course, he says flat-out no.



Hitchens vs Galloway: The big debate - World Politics - World - The Independent