Political leadership - Cowen and FF have very few options

AS Brian Cowen’s time as a political leader stumbles towards its ignominious end it is sobering to recall the optimism that greeted his elevation to the Taoiseach’s office less than 30 months ago.

Many people were happy just because he was not Bertie Ahern, there seemed to be so much more to Mr Cowen and in different circumstances he might have had an opportunity to prove that. This feeling persisted even as economic storm clouds gathered.

Very few if any of his contemporaries — or predecessors — might have been better able to cope with the economic circumstances he inherited but a real sense of disappointment remains that the optimism of May 2008 was so very misplaced. That disappointment is exacerbated by the fact that Mr Cowen, along with Mr Ahern and Mr McCreevy, gave political oxygen to the business practices that beggared this country. It is deepened too by some of the decisions he took and that he sometimes, too often, behaved without the grace or openness that comes naturally to good political leaders.