A knock out punchline

I must make a confession here, and that is that I’m always captivated by a quick witted argument, let alone the person who makes it.  Irrespective of whether I agree with the person and/or the argument or not, the way in which an argument is put or a point is made goes a long way towards it’s strength and hence its acceptance.

Once upon a long ago, , before WWF, Football, boxing and other knock out sports came along, people used to debate each other in a sports-like fashion.  If you had a decent command of the language and the slightest bit of interest and knowledge of the topic at hand, you would have your adrenaline levels soaring as you follow the quiet statements which accelerate into passionate exchanges, which then culminate into full knock out punches, some of which could prove to be quite deadly to the debater’s career.

Though the theatrics are sometimes long remembered, much of what’s actually said is quickly forgotten, unless it’s so remarkable that it outlives the emotion which caused it to be said in the first place.  This is exactly the case for this statement made by Mr. George Galloway, the Respect MP for  Bethnal Green and Bow, in the context of the debate in the British Parliament on the Anglo-American extradition treaty (click here to read the full text of Mr. Galloway’s statements, and click here to view the full text of the parliamentary discussion).  

“All we want is a special relationship that does not resemble that between Miss Lewinsky and a former United States President: unequal, disreputable and with the junior partner always on their knees. That is not the kind of special relationship that we want, but as the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson) powerfully made clear, it is exactly the kind of special relationship that most people in Britain think that we have with the United States of America, whether that is true or not”.

Now whether you agree with this argument or not, you have to admit it’s brilliant!  When I called and mentioned it to him on his talk show, his response was “I hope it wasn’t too much knuckles down for you”.  Anyway, if you’d like to hear more of that sort of talk, you can tune into Mr. Galloways weekly talk show On Sports Talk in Scotland.  The show is on Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Mountain Time.  Just go to the stations’s web site and click on the “listen live” link.  You will need to download the latest version of the Winamp player to be able to listen to the shoutcast stream.