To Make It Clear

Anyone who knows me will probably wonder why I have not made more of the Bold Bertie's departure. Well, joy is somewhat tempered by the fact that Cowen is looming so fearfully, though I suppose FF is made of characters each as bad as the other, so whoever's up next is scary. Anyhow I am happy at Bertie's resignation. Justice has finally been done. Well, some of it anyway. 'History will look kindly...' is the phrase a lot of the television pundits have been allowing to escape with their sighs of relief. While I know why, it goes against the grain to be celebrating a criminal. And for me one of the worst crimes imaginable is a politician's abuse of power. Not only do they break the law, they assault a population (whether they know it or not) and damage, perhaps irrevocably, the social Good. It is the social contract that is compromised and once done, society's value system becomes unstuck and ultimately anything goes. Think of the many social ills that follow on from a nation's perverse admiration of 'the cute hoor'. That's why Haughey was so evil, and why the man he called 'the most devious of them all' should join him in infamy. Am I too harsh? Well, I tend to remind people of that time when Haughey was importing those expensive shirts from Paris while the shoplifter who stole a Penny's jacket hung himself in Mountjoy. Who was the greater criminal and whose the worse punishment?

HOORAY!!!!!!!

The Bold Bertie Resigns
BERTIE RESIGNS! And about time too.

And lest we forget, a few Bertie pics

Bertie in His Own Words

I meant to post this link earlier in the week (thanks, Nigel):

http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?t=28234

It speaks for itself really.

Goldfish Memory

Apparently Fianna Fail have 'plunged' in the opinion polls. Will it really matter come that very far distant polling day? What more exactly do we know now that we didn't know the last election? Bertie is a sham, his party line their own pockets, they are inefficient and the public means nothing to them; what part of the above is new? We have very short memories anyway. Did someone say something about the Government?

The Candyman Can!

So the law was changed just for Woods! Great when you (yes, YOU, Cowen, you bulbous bag of bullying 'bon homie') can change a country's laws to help out a buddy! And then of course, there's everyones' favourite, Bertie, with his €38,000 pay hike. The under-the-floorboards stash must be running low. So what's that now? €310,000! Let's hope he has a bank account set up now though, in case of any future misunderstandings.

(And what of that under-the-mountain phantom army, the Greens? Have they deserted Middle Earth again?????????)

You know, Bertie's troubles might all be because of the ghost, I mean THE ghost (C.J.H., don't say it too loud, or three times in succession!). Perhaps he's been possessed! It would explain the recent bouts of memory loss, the wild gurning at the Tribunal, the sudden changes of personality from honest friend of the people to... well, okay scrap that last part. But it could be possession, if not of a Griffith Avenue property, then Bertie's soul (making the grand presumption that he has one...nah, scrap that too). Imagine his head spinning round while answering questions in the Dail! Actually that's not so unusual, come to think of it. His policies do too.

We need an exorcism! We need to call out the foul infestation! Leave our leader!!!!

C.J.H., C.J.H., C.J.H.!

No, nothing. Maybe if I stand in front of a mirror and say it five times: C.J.H., C.J.H., C.J.H., C.J.H., C.J.H....

The Irish Government, aka the Drinks Cabinet

It seems fairly appropriate that our Minister for Defence, Willie O'Dea (where are the little people?), should make it into the news for wanting to start a fight. Somehow though, picking a brawl in a local bar is not usually what defence ministers are meant to do. (Gentlemen, please, you can't fight here. This is a war room!) Anyway considering the little git's behaviour, only one word springs to mind: gobshite! Actually several words spring to mind, the same words that spring to mind when Mr O'Dea's friend and colleague, Mr Bertie Ahern is mentioned: ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! GOBSHITE!

Time Enough at Last?

I read today that Ahern told journalists on Saturday that he resents the Tribunal because it doesn't leave him time to read. Like the rest of us. Imagine if for three days of your presumably undemanding life as leader of a country you didn't have the time to read. The poor man!* I have completely revised my opinion of the poor recluse. To think of all that time in a public forum answering questions. Damn it, the poor man is worried that they might have him there until he's old and grey! (Well, old anyway). And after three days already would you be surprised! That's three days people! It could go to four. Maybe even five! Have a heart, Judge Mahon! Why can't you let Bertie get back to the Dail where he can stand in a public place and um, answer questions, and um, maybe even get some reading done....

 

I mean of course when the Dail actually opens again this Wednesday. To think that you're disturbing the poor hermit's holidays! There's only three months of them you know!

 

 

* (Burgess Meredith's bank official in The Twilight Zone springs to mind - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734683/. Hell, Bertie even has the bank experience! Or does he...?)

Unfair and Wrong!

Bertie Ahern tries to remember

That's what Bertie said of the Mahon Tribunal. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Surely we should be thinking about getting a new Taoiseach given that the current one has so many problems remembering things. Is there anything he recalls from the past two years, let alone the last seventeen! Must be all those 'one-of-the-boys' pints in Fagan's.

 

And those lawyers he has. Funny how they insist on keeping all those details that would contradict the Tribunal's info to themselves. Perhaps they're saving it for another day, another tribunal. Have to think of the future! (Seeing as the past presents so many difficulties).

 

And forget about Northern Rock! How can we trust any bank given that they can't seem to keep their records straight, especially on large sterling (or was that dollar) transactions. Bertie, as a former Minister for Finance, surely you could do something about these scandalous work practices. No wonder you didn't have a bank account!

 

What a man! The cute hoor!

Burn Out

You know it's a bad day when your pc cd drive refuses to open; when the web server you work with stops; when that bloody website that that bloody school set up remains sabotaged by Frontpage; when you have to turn voicemail on just so that you can get some work done. Yes, one of those days when as Karen puts it (sung in singsong), 'Somebody needs a hug!' Hugs are not too common in my line and wouldn't help much anyway. The foul adversary is that by which we live, that which pays my salary, that which allows me to write to you this moment: COMPUTER! Destroy the digital demon! Oh, for the days of tin cans and string! I jest, of course (...of course, of course, of course). Mighty hail the ubermachine! I just wish I wasn't so intimately involved. Sometimes anyhow.

 

Bertie Ahern at the Mahon Tribunal

Speaking of foul adversaries, Ahern looks like getting away with all that money business. Yes, Mr Wall, of course you don't remember how much you gave him (of course, of course, of course,)!

 

And just where is my Tarantino ticket!

Not a Good Day for Ireland

Well, it looks like Fianna Fail have done it again. There's no point in complaining any more. If this is what the Irish people want, I throw up my hands, after washing them, of course. This is democracy in action and if our future is blighted, at least it will only be due to more of the same. Having said that, I hardly imagine Rabbitte's Labour Party of instigating a Stalinist regime. Broad stroke politics, for good or ill, have disappeared. And for the most part, so have ideals.

That's the way of democracy in the West, I suppose, and probably something we have learnt, presuming people can learn at all, from the Twentieth Century. Then we had a century of ideological fervour, and so politicians of sociopathological criminality. If ideas take too much hold on the political imagination, politicians risk sliding into an unreal world of fictions. Now, and for the last few decades, we have a more 'moderate' approach. Ideology has taken a back seat to self-interest, in turn leading to governments guided by their own self interest. In contrast to earlier pathological criminality, we now have self-interested crime. Where before a Hitler or Stalin wiped out nations for insane ideas, now we have a Bush or Blair wreaking havoc for profit. That is the mindset that characterises, albeit it on a supremely petty level, Bertie Ahern and his party. (Witness the Minister for Finance without a bank account.)

The anomaly in the above, of course, is Blair who gives a very persuasive appearance of actually believing in his actions. He may well be a minor throwback to ideological politics, he's certainly a Tory, but every time I think of Blair I recall an event from way back in 1997, either just before or just after Labour's famous victory. I was working on a kid's online adventure game at the time, and the project team had drafted in a public relations guru from Britain. I was still a little struck by the Blair promise at the time, so we got talking about him. Indeed, our guru had worked with him. So was he the idealistic angel he appeared, I asked. She wouldn't buy a used car off the man, was her reply. Hhhmmm. As I say maybe he's sincerely an idiot. Maybe he just seems so.

Even I will admit that given the choice between sociopathic crime and self-interested crime, the latter is preferable. At least, it is understandable. Given a real choice, however, I would opt for a political landscape free of crime altogether. I suppose that really is just too idealistic.