Pretenders show bad judgment in sending boys to do a man’s job

THEY sent in the backbench boys to do the man’s work they couldn’t handle themselves.

Both Mícheál Martin and Brian Lenihan’s rival, but twin-track, attempts at a silent coup have left neither covered in glory and re-ignited serious judgment issues regarding both.

Mr Lenihan has been playing a particularly dangerous end-game. He was seen pacing anxiously up and down outside the Dáil canteen late Thursday night, apparently bemoaning the fact Mary Hanafin had not yet inflicted the first blow on Brian Cowen and thus triggered the contest.

Lenihan and Martin did not want to be seen as the ones who forced his downfall — much more dignified to talk out of both sides of your mouth then ride to the party’s rescue as the self-styled unity candidate.

Lenihan had held court in the Dáil bar the previous evening — he was a conspicuous, brooding figure in both the private and public saloons that make up the dark, festering heart of Leinster House.

A wave of intrigue soon swept over the place as Blackberry’s and iPhones buzzed with text messages that the heave was on — Cowen was gone.

But within hours, the finance minister was professing his confidence in Cowen and denying any knowledge of where the coup talk had come from. A slippery business, politics.

All the while Martin was attempting to outmanoeuvre him. The foreign minister was staying in the shadows — at one point even turning on his heels and beating an ignominious retreat rather than face an advancing reporter.

To the surprise of some bunker loyalists at FF high command, Martin moved to garner the morning headlines and keep the door ajar for a coup.

But rather than stand and be counted, the Cork pretender issued an ambiguous statement which was meant to be read as bidding his backbenchers to seize the initiative he and Lenihan had so blatantly shied away from and tell Cowen to quit in the one-on-one meetings the Taoiseach had been forced to concede to his troops in a bid to head-off rebellion.

Martin’s hesitation in showing his hand, and failure to act firmly to seize the prize, threw up all the old questions about his indecisiveness, his need to be popular at all costs, and his perceived lack of a killer political instinct.

It was left to Éamon Ó Cuív of all people — long considered a featherweight in a lightweight cabinet — to call the Martin/Lenihan/Hanafin bluff and tell them it is “invidious” of them to remain ministers if they were conspiring behind the Taoiseach’s back to remove him from power.

At least Ms Hanafin had the steel to talk tough in public as well as private.

But she is not seen as a serious saviour for the party as she battles to hold onto her Dáil seat, and her strident, hectoring style grates with many.

Also, choosing a female leader at this stage could smack of tokenism. The Canadian Progressive Conservative Party — an organisation as slow in promoting women as FF — suddenly went for a last-minute woman leader in the 1990s as it faced a heavy defeat. But the electorate was not fooled and the once dominant Tories were left with just two seats in parliament.

FF is staring down the barrel of a similar wipe-out as the trench lobby fodder is getting jittery.

But no one could accuse Mr Cowen of not being the architect of his own downfall — the latest Anglo revelations merely adding to the image of a man promoted way above his abilities.

Let’s hope he’s better at golf than he is at governing, but those trips down the fairways have tripped him up something rotten in recent days.

Concealing key contacts with disgraced Anglo boss Seanie FitzPatrick has finally proved his undoing — the fact more and more evidence of Anglo-philia on his part emerges on an almost daily basis adds to the melee and the mayhem swirling around him.

While publicly supportive of Cowen, Lenihan is said to have been livid with rage during a private meeting over the leadership last Monday morning. Martin has played a slyer game, with his face-to-face encounter with the Taoiseach that evening a more sedate affair.

A “robust” meeting with all the FF ministers the following day set the scene for Cowen’s belated disclosure of yet more Anglo contacts in the Dáil on Wednesday which helped push the leadership into crisis the next day.

But Cowen may have an unlikely ally in the guise of Eamon Gilmore.

Perhaps smarting that he had been kept off the TV screens for a full 48 hours by the FF rumpus, the Labour leader threw down a motion of no confidence — but one in the Government as a whole, not just Cowen.

This means FF and the Greens could close ranks once more. But perhaps that’s what Gilmore really wants. Losing Cowen now would deprive the opposition of one of their greatest election weapons.

And then there was Ivor.

Senator Callely’s High Court victory once again reminding voters of the expenses outrages that have splattered Fianna Fáil during this parliament. FF is now seared into the public mind as the party of Anglo, taxpayer-funded ostentation and the IMF.

A rare moment of levity in the crisis came on Twitter when it was noted that Cowen had now overtaken Tiger Woods as the most screwed golfer in the world.

Throughout the disaster Cowen and his would-be FF successors have repeatedly talked of doing not what’s best for the country, but what is best for the party.

But more than ever, it looks like the party’s well and truly over — and neither Martin nor Lenihan are going to be able to bring FF back to life.