Why can't Irish newspapers do it like the Philadelphia Inquirer

international | arts and media | other press Sunday September 23, 2007 08:40 by Miriam Cotton - MediaBite

Ahern's dissembling disected

Shawn Pogatchnik of AFP fillets Ahern's testimony for the Inquirer with a minium of fuss.

The best of the political reporting about Ahern's conduct has been Harry McGee's in the Irish Examiner, imho. He has deployed a dry humour throughout (e.g. 'In the Taoiseach's latest version of events...') and his blog is well worth a read on the subject too, with some funny quotes: "If the Taoiseach fell into the Liffey, he would come out of it dry":

"But this week was different. When the consensus was he was doing better, to me Thursday afternoon was his nadir. And the reason? I just can’t buy his story about the £30,000 sterling, Not in April when he came up with it and not now – especially not now when he’s chopping and changing his story so often. And his telling of it has been shabby.

That was a massive sum back then. And there are no records in AIB of any such transaction. On Thursday he offered a brand new explanation. It could have been exchanged in another bank, or maybe in no bank at all. Or he could have got somebody to do it for him. And as he was travelling all over the country, it could have happened anywhere. Or it could have been done by instalments."

http://www.harrymcgee.com/

Pogatchnik is forensic, though. By the simple strategy of leaving the Taoiseach's words speak for themselves he achieves more than any amount of commentary ever could:

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation_world....html

The contempt is dripping from the page and yet not a word of comment is given. Nicely done.

McGee says that the Irish brand of the cult of the hero is unique in the world except perhaps in Asian countries (Ayatollah's e.g.). And he is right - we go in for a foolish and childish brand of 'loveable roguery' which looks distinctly stupid and inappropriate to grown up observers elsewhere. Perhaps a greater consciousness of this sort of external attention to what Ahern has done might persuade our political elite to come to their senses and deal with this situation for what it is. Suppose the head of a charity had accepted undeclared payments from private firms who also benefitted from privileges awarded to them by the same person? There would be outrage and rightly so. The Taoiseach has behaved despicably and should resign. He is refusing to tell the truth about where much of the money he received came from. The only inescapable conclusion is that he cannot because it will expose him as corrupt. Ahern is a rotten example in Irish life and if we let him get away with this the message will be clear: nobody will need to bother with honesty or ethics in Irish life anymore.