Blaming the messenger - The truth is hurting Fianna Fáil

THE UNVEILING of former RTÉ economics editor George Lee – the naysayer-in-chief to Bertie Ahern’s denier-in-chief – was an irresistible opportunity for Fianna Fáil to dust off one of the party’s oldest, most reliable and shabbiest dodges.

Like a trout rising to a mayfly on Corrib or Mask this afternoon, they could not resist. They played a familiar card, one they and many other political parties in trouble have used for generations, to cloud the water, to distract and confuse, to sow doubt amongst wavering voters. The ultimate objective was the same as ever though, they were trying to save their skin.

No sooner had Fine Gael offered Lee to the electorate of Dublin South than Fianna Fáil figures erupted in the usual rent-a-chorus extravaganza of faux offence. They didn’t quite warn us of Reds Under the Bed but that is the kind of feeling they hoped to engender.