Pedantic, Predictable, Pathetic Paranoia

Oy vey! When will FF learn? While the country goes into the worst financial meltdown since, well, ever, while the head of the National Treasury Management Agency warns the Daíl's Public Accounts Committee that Ireland will be lucky to hold on to it's final AAA credit rating, and our numerically-challenged Minister for Finance admits that in all likelihood a quarter of a million more Irish people are going to be unemployed by the end of next year, what are the good people in Fianna Faíl most worried about?

What else but the greatest single threat to the Irish economy and the safety and stability of this sovereign nation, if not possibly the world: George Lee!

It really is worrying that at every turn, this Fianna Faíl administration seems determined to ape the US Republican party, decrying the hidden agenda of the 'liberal media' at every turn, but it's not a new occurrence.

This year alone we have had the disgrace that was Cowen-gate, and government chief-whip Pat Carey claiming that RTE has an anti-Fianna Faíl bias in reaction to Pat Kenny questioning the veracity of FF's newly found anti-Property Developer stance.

Now, however, the madness has spread to even the usually sensible Martin Mansergh who this week claimed that George Lee had entered politics because he was "beginning to find too onerous the requirements of maintaining objectivity and impartiality on the national broadcasting station”.

Hardly ambivalent (tell us what you really think Martin) but at least the Tipp TD is one to give a sly dig while maintaining a sheen of dignity, even if the point is somewhat ridiculous.

Pointing out that government policy is putting our state in grave risk for the a number of years is not failing to be impartial if it turns out it's true.

After all Martin, if it looks like a failed economic policy, walks like a failed economic policy, talks like a failed economic policy, it's probably not a duck or a cat.

But Martin was not alone, nor was he the most shrill, nor was he the one who made the biggest fool of himself in the George Lee stakes this week. That honour goes to the inimitable FF Senator Terry Leyden.

In the Seanad this week Senator Leyden ranted and raved about George Lee, claiming that “It was biased reporting of the previous government that damaged this economy and this State.”

So there we have it then.

The ruination of the state was not caused by the the disastrous waste of €51 million on e-voting machines here, €220 million on PPARS there, the disgraceful waste that is de-centralisation (that has cost an estimated €360,000 per person decentralised at no benefit to the actual quality of governance) the 800-odd mostly useless quangos, the sickening waste of €20 million per week of taxpayers money at FÁS, the cronyism, the back slapping jobs for the boys, the lack of qualified economists at the Department of Finance, the blind faith in de-regulation above all else, the Galway Races tent, the builders, bankers and property developers who drove up the price of property far past any reasonable or recognisable level, all the while impervious to the warnings for years that there has never, ever, in the history of any economy in the world, ever been a 'soft-landing'...

No, no, it's clear that the whole economic crisis is George Lee's fault! With some investigation no doubt Senator Leyden will go on to report that George Lee is in fact responsible for global warming, the assassination of JFK and our repeated failures at Eurovision.

Let's get real and call a failed government a failed government and quit beating around the bush; successive FF/PD governments have raped this country for over a decade with a combination of lax and lazy governance, dishonesty, blind incompetence, and a lack of respect for the people that they are supposed to serve.

A government comprised in it's entirety of a dozen washed and shaved chimpanzees, chain-smoking John Player cigarettes and drinking heavily while dressed in clown suits could not do a worse job than has been done over the past decade. They would probably give better speeches too.

Rather than whining that someone of competence is standing against this tide of incompetence, why not just admit that FF has been terribly, terribly wrong and try to cobble together some policies that take into account the many mistakes that have been made to date and the advice that has hitherto been ignored?

Leadership, I believe it's called.

Of course that would not benefit the Fiann Faíl party and after all, that is what really matters to the current crop of FF politicians, not serving the people of this state, not leading the country, not putting our children's future before Punch & Judy politics.

George Lee is not the panacea for all our ills, nor is anyone claiming that, least of all the man himself.

However, he is one of a small group of politicians and business commentators who, for the past few years has repeatedly and consistently predicted that what has happened would happen. Not the Property Developers, not the Bankers, Unions and most certainly not Fianna Faíl or the PD's.

We need people of proven intellect like Lee in politics now more than ever, and the less guff we here from FF politicians in the Daíl or Seanad about blue-shirt bogeymen in the closet in RTE, the better.