George Galloway jumps on Julian Assange and rides him hard
OH. What joy. Isn’t it marvellous when someone you really don’t like puts their foot in it. Before we get to George Galloway and Julian Assange – what a team! – Robert Colvile calls to mind a saying:
“Sit by the river long enough, and the bodies of your enemies will float by.”
No. Here’s Galloway, a leading light of the – get his – Respect Party (oh, the irony) now representing Bradford in Parliament, telling us in his Goodnight With George Galloway podcast that Julian Assange is accused of nothing more than “bad sexual etiquette”. Galloway wasn’t in the room when Assange was with his alleged victims. But he paints a picture. Assange is wanted in Sweden to face allegations – which he denies – of sexual assault made by two women.
“But even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100 per cent true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don’t constitute rape. At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it. And somebody has to say this.”
Here’s Galloway’s address to the planet sent from whatever planet he inhabits. The egotist realises that being a minor MP will get you less headlines than being a minor MP on a gameshow (he was famously on Big Brother) or going in the internet to talk about sex. For get the Commons. If it’s superficial public recognition you want, jump on Julian Assanage and ride like hell. He understands celebrity does Gorgeous George.
Tom Chivers notes:
You would think, by now, that politicians would have learned to shut up about what constitutes “real” rape, “rape-rape”, or “honest rape”. But no: at the same time, over in America, a Republican congressman called Todd Akin has decided to claim that “legitimate rape” doesn’t get women pregnant, with the subtext being: if a woman gets pregnant, she was actually only “crying rape”.
Says Galloway:
Let me tell you, I think that Julian Assange’s personal sexual behaviour is something sordid, disgusting, and I condemn it. But even taken at its worst, the allegations made against him by the two women – and I’m not even going into their political connections, I’m going to leave that for others and for another day. I’m going to leave the fact that one, maybe both, of his accusers have the strangest of links to the strangest of people, organisations and states, I’m going to leave that entirely aside.
Even taken at its worst, if the allegations made by these two women were true, 100 per cent true, and even if a camera in the room captured them, they don’t constitute rape. At least not rape as anyone with any sense can possibly recognise it. And somebody has to say this.
Let’s take woman A. Woman A met Julian Assange, invited him back to her flat, gave him dinner, went to bed with him, had consensual sex with him. Claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know.
I mean not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion. Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you’re already in the sex game with them.
It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, “do you mind if I do it again?”. It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning. . .
I don’t believe either of those women, I don’t believe either of these stories.
No. It is rape. You can read why it is rape here.
Says Galloway on twitter:
If Assange does go to Sweden, Look out for Galloway going along or the ego trip…
Posted: 20th, August 2012 | In: Key Posts, Politicians Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
