Blair and Bertie, give us a break

Michael Clifford (Opinion, Nov 4) expounds freely (and accurately) on the debilitating legacy that haunts the ‘bould Bertie, long after his deserved demise in a whirlpool of shame.

Even Alistair Campbell who has spun many a tall-tale makes no inroads on the jaundiced public opinion of our recent Taoiseach of cunning.

Clifford’s coupling of Bertie with the vacuous Blair parallels the two imposters with many opposite comparisons, highlighting the one big difference — Tony-speak was comprehensible, though shallow. Whereas Bertie hogged the soundbites with a clatter of vacuous gibberish. Both played to their media audiences with dedicated idiosyncratic aplomb. The opportunistic machinations which preoccupied both men far outweigh their well-documented commitment to the peace process. The fact that they were the final cogs to appear in a long line of ‘peacemakers’, gives them no particular special right of profile.