St Bertie reborn as party faithful take on heretics

THE 5,000 Fianna Fáil disciples who gathered at Dublin’s Citywest for the adoration of the Bertie were not fed with loaves and fishes, instead they feasted on jibes and disses directed against the opposition heretics who had dared try and take down their Taoiseach.

The crowds thronged and swooned in his presence, all surging to touch Bertie as he moved among them in a way not so much mysterious as delirious. This was the second coming of the Taoiseach, reborn in the fire which, for a moment at least, had threatened to destroy him. Not surprisingly, no one mentioned the parable of the money lenders in the temple.

Mr Ahern’s only oblique reference to the unpleasantness of the autumn came in the line: “We would all, I am sure, lead perfect lives if hindsight were foresight.” Quite so, and if monkeys were dolphins they’d live in the sea. But, what on earth was it supposed to mean?

He didn’t seem to be saying it was unacceptable for a serving Minister of Finance to pocket €12,000 from a group of unnamed businessmen, so was it just there to underline the banality of self-serving political morality?

The ecstatic audience were past caring. He could have told them water was wine and still they’d have stomped and cheered as gleefully as they did at every drive-by sniper hit on the opposition.

Leading the charge of the slight brigade was Willie O’Dea, although the idea of the Defence Minister as attack dog took some getting used to, especially as the damage he inflicted had all the force of a mauling from a wet moustache.

Minister after minister fell back on the twin track of eulogising the Bertie with one hand and lambasting the “knifings” of the opposition with the other.

This culminated in a surreal performance from John O’Donoghue which appeared to link Pat Rabbitte to everything from North Korean executions to fascism via the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.

The only positive agenda being pushed was that of benighted Bertie as Mr Boom. A point rammed home by a borderline hysterical Brian Cowen, who jabbed the air like a prize fighter taunting an opponent at the weigh-in, as he strained to heap enough praise on the Taoiseach.

The two then embraced in a genuinely warm man-hug in a moment which seemed to meld the present and future leadership of Fianna Fáil.

Mr Ahern had come on stage in a blur, literally, as the thrash of Blur’s Song 2 exploded across the hall and he left to the defiant chorus of Fleetwood Mac’s Yesterday’s Gone.

We had paid witness to a Taoiseach reborn. The beatification of St Bertie of the Borrowed Money was complete.