Something about Mary

So Mary O'Rourke thinks that David Norris and Brendan Ryan are "dotty" for suggesting (during order of business in the Seanad this morning) that RTE's recent documentary on President McAleese was a disgrace. "That's a dotty suggestion. You're dotty." Once again the sophisticated political rhetoric of Fianna Fail's Leader of the Seanad has soared to new troughs.

Norris and Ryan are absolutely right. This awful documentary was fawning. It was also unbalanced. It failed to pose any serious probing questions about McAleese, from her time in RTE itself to her special relationship to the Catholic hierarchy.

It was also atrociously untimely. It came bang in the run-up to this summer's presidential election. Why? And can you imagine the mandarins of Montrose giving the other candidates equal airtime in primetime, or such a glowing, soft, sugar-sweet profile?

If Norris is "dotty", on mature reflection I would far rather someone of his wonderful dottiness standing for the office of President of Ireland than the kind of candidates that Fianna Fail keeps putting forward.

Someone, in other words, of Norris's honourable stature, someone who isn't a party stooge, someone who knows what it's like to be a voice in the wilderness on many issues (at a time when they were neither popular nor profitable) rather than the party yes-man and the FF nods-and-winks brigade.

Yes, someone with a strong track record in the Seanad and elsewhere, on everything from human rights in the broadest sense across the world to gay rights in Ireland in particular. Someone who would say something about the kind of country we live in today, the changing Ireland that wants to get shut of the bungs and the hang-ups of Fianna Fail with its money-in-brown-envelopes legacy and its shallow point-scoring and name-calling. Someone with clear principles, someone with a sense of humour, and someone who knows his Joyce.

Feck it, let's get somebody into the Aras who isn't called Mary for a change. Join the campaign, persuade the man himself, even get the T-shirt Posted by mick cunningham at March 31, 2004 12:55 PM | Email a friend this entry | TrackBack