Mud and how to sling it

Dear Willie O’Dea – I’m going to miss him. Remember the time he was filmed pointing a huge Defence-forces gun with the caption ‘Go ahead, punk, make my day!’? How we laughed. Or the time in Europe when he’d been speaking to some mainland MEPs for several minutes before one of them asked if they could have a translation into English. But now Wee Willie has screwed up, not so much by swearing lies about a Sinn Fein candidate owning a brothel, as by allowing the story to surface at a time when the Greens desperately needed to look moral and Fianna Fail desperately needed to be propped up by the Greens. Alas, poor Willie, we knew him well – ‘a was a fellow of infinite jest. And that MOUSTACHE…

Mind you, the way Enda Kenny was getting all puffed up with indignation, you’d think he was the one who’d been accused of running a brothel. Besides, southern politicians for years have been saying the first thing that came into their head about Sinn Fein people’s involvement in violence, things for which they have no evidence but felt safe in saying because Sinn Fein tended not to sue. And if it’s more recent unsubstantiated claims you want, have a look at what’s been aimed at Gerry Adams over recent weeks. Never mind Enda Kenny being in the brothel-running business; someone new to the Adams story would have concluded that Gerry Adams was the one accused of abusing his niece, and not the girl’s father, Liam Adams.

So to sum up: the Greens act moral but only when they feel they’ll look bad if they don’t; Fine Gael gets all upset about a Sinn Fein councillor’s good name while at the same time declaring themselves so morally superior to Sinn Fein, they couldn’t possibly serve in government with them,; and the whole affair’s reported by a press that has no compunction in receiving balls of mud from unnamed sources to fire at the leader of a party they detest, all the while adopting a we-only-do-this-because-we’re-concerned-for-the-public-good demeanour.

Cheesh. Compared to that lot, Wee Willie begins to look like an honest liar.