Marlboro Man shoots from lip
But the outcome of John Deasy's impetuous actions in the private members' bar in Leinster House on Tuesday night was all too real and was symptomatic of his irascibility.
The nickname of John Wayne, attached to Deputy Deasy by Willie O'Dea in a recent spat, looked like sticking until yesterday.
After becoming the first casualty of the smoking ban, the moniker of another Western icon was suggested for the maverick Fine Gael TD Marlboro Man.
Arguably, the most appropriate suggestion, though, was: James Dean Rebel Without A Cause.
Maybe Rebel Without A Clue would be more to the point.
Unquestionably, the 36-year-old Waterford TD has made a significant impression since his arrival in Dáil Éireann, but at times his choice of fights have been misjudged.
The dogmatic attitude didn't come out of the ground though.
His father, Austin Deasy the former long-serving TD and Agriculture Minister, who Deasy Junior replaced in politics was always noted for his stubbornness and single-minded outlook.
Now living in Dungarvan and travelling up to Dublin each week, in the past year, Deputy Deasy got engaged to TV3 crime correspondent Maura Derrane and the couple are to marry next year.
After growing up in the family's home town of Dungarvan, Deputy Deasy headed to the US, studying for a bachelor of arts in history and communications at Mercyhurst College in Pennsylvania.
From there, he went to Washington to work as an assistant to a number of Republican politicians on Capitol Hill and also for a time as a lobbyist for a waste management company.
Returning from the US in 1997, he enrolled as a mature student in University College Cork, where he studied law.
With his father's retirement pending, he ran in the local elections and got elected to Waterford County Council and Dungarvan UDC, setting him up nicely for a shot in the general election.
The successes of Deputy Deasy and a number of other young turks, including Olwyn Enright, Damien English and Paul Kehoe, was the sole plus point out of Fine Gael's catastrophic election in 2002.
Filling the numerous vacancies in the Fine Gael front ranks, new party leader Enda Kenny promoted Deputy Deasy to the highly important justice portfolio, but his faith was rewarded with a series of outbursts from the firebrand TD.
Shooting from the lip, the Fine Gael justice spokesman's outspoken style gained him a considerable media profile and mass recognition with the public as someone who told it as he saw it.
Straight from the off, though, Deputy Deasy managed to get up the noses of some of his party colleagues with what was perceived to be a superiority complex.
"I'm living proof you don't have to go to Mass, or GAA games, or pig sales to get elected in rural Ireland," he typically said in an interview shortly after the general election.
Opinion is deeply divided within the party about his abilities, with his critics arguing that he is arrogant, not a team player, more style than substance and not well-informed about his brief.
Yet friends argue that he is misunderstood as he is conscientious and good craic.
While Michael McDowell made an approach to Deputy Deasy to join the Progressive Democrats last year, the Minister for Justice has not held back from letting loose when his marker has been slack in putting forward a coherently structured and well-researched argument.
The view that he was not a team player was reinforced by his numerous public challenges to the party leadership, resulting in a grovelling apology to Mr Kenny after he broke ranks with the party to vote with the Government on the immigration bill.
On the morning of his smoking misdemeanour he had yet another fractious row with his front-bench colleagues after he committed Fine Gael to supporting the forthcoming citizenship referendum, before the party leader had decided to even go down that path yet.
The smoking misdemeanour was the final straw for someone already on an absolute final warning.
Certain key Fine Gael advisers won't be too sorry to see the internal thorn in their side confined to the back-benches and the lack of sympathy being expressed by some of his colleagues was noteworthy.
Ironically, Deputy Deasy got his wish that party veterans like Jim O'Keeffe should be brought back to the front-bench. Added to the frequent expressions of discontent, the latest development has led to speculation and concerns within Fine Gael that he may quit politics or even defect to the PDs.
Doubtless the young blood will decide on his own terms where his future lies.
