George Galloway, on his way to testify in front of a
United States Senate subcommittee investigating the scandals in the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, called Hitchens a "drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay"
[81], to which Hitchens quickly replied, "Only some of which is true."
[82] Later, in a column for
Slate promoting his debate with Galloway which was to take place on September 14, 2005, he elaborated on his prior response. "He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a "popinjay" (true enough, since its original
Webster's definition means a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest)."
[83] Oliver Burkeman writes, "Since the parting of ways on Iraq […] Hitchens claims to have detected a new, personalised nastiness in the attacks on him, especially over his fabled consumption of alcohol. He welcomes being attacked as a drinker 'because I always think it's a sign of victory when they move on to the
ad hominem.' He drinks, he says, 'because it makes other people less boring. I have a great terror of being bored. But I can work with or without it. It takes quite a lot to get me to slur.'"
[84]
