Obama aide and Gaybo both targets as myopic outlooks triumph

Dr McCarthy queried the appointment of Gay Byrne to the RSA because Byrne is in his 70s.

On that basis, the Rev Ian Paisley shouldn’t have been allowed to have anything to do with the peace process because he was too old. Similarly, the Pope should be forcibly retired.

DURING the American civil war, news kept reaching President Abraham Lincoln — news freighted with disapproval.

One of his generals in the field was drinking. Not just drinking, but drinking heavily. In fact, not to put a tooth in it, nobody could remember when the general involved had last drawn a sober breath, but everybody knew that if/when it had happened, it hadn’t been voluntary.

Lincoln would ask for solutions. Boot the guy was the consensus. Fire him. Court martial him. Lincoln would give these options his full consideration. And then he would tell the informant that if he could find out what brand of whisky the general was drinking, he, the president, would distribute crates of that particular whisky to every one of his other generals, because it might perhaps improve their lamentable performance. The drunk, in military terms, was doing just fine. The sober were not.

It’s doubtful if any modern president could take that line, because the first time a photograph appeared in international newspapers of the inebriated general passed out in public, today’s reality would kick in.

The man would be defined by the public expression of a singular fault. Never mind the broader reality, focus on the specific sin.

That’s what caused Barack Obama to give Samantha Power her walking papers this weekend. Here’s a woman with a brain the size of Asia and experience to match.

Here’s a woman whose splendid book on genocide won the Pulitzer Prize. Here’s a woman whose grasp of American foreign policy is as comprehensive as her approach is innovative. Here’s a woman who would have represented a major strength in any putative Obama cabinet. Here’s a woman currently carrying the equivalent of a P45, because she described Hillary Clinton as a monster.

“You see her and go ‘ergh’,” Power told The Scotsman newspaper.

She also drew that paper’s attention to the deception she felt Clinton engaged in. Like claiming to have been instrumental in the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Obama, having promised his camp wouldn’t engage in personal attacks, eliminated Samantha Power, thus robbing himself of a great strength. Good PR move?

For Hillary, yes. David Trimble’s masterful understatement describing her peace process claims as “a bit silly” is unlikely to be quoted in the US, let alone influence the voters in the remaining states. For Obama, in the short term, it may also have been a PR win — while reducing his future strength.

He may have believed he had no choice in the face of the current consensus that a human being (and, by inference, an entire campaign) can be summed up and sunk by one trait, one statement, one mistake.

In a weird coincidence of timing, in our own country, nasty comments about a prominent figure who’s not even a politician will probably result in a re-election of the man who made them.

Vested interest declaration: I have worked with Dr Sean McCarthy when he was Minister for Science and Technology, and enjoyed every minute of that work and every contact with the man. That said, his rubbishing of Gay Byrne’s chairmanship of the Road Safety Authority was outrageous.

It was outrageous, first of all, because it was made on the basis of age. Dr McCarthy queried the appointment of Byrne to the RSA because Byrne is in his 70s. On that basis, the Reverend Ian Paisley shouldn’t have been allowed to have anything to do with the peace process over the past productive 10 years, because he was too old.

Similarly, the Pope should be forcibly retired right now because he is too old.

DR McCarthy seems to have a mental competence cut-off point. Somewhere in your 60s, you cease to have value and should be moth-balled. Which does rather beg the question as to why, at a fairly advanced age, he believes it’s OK for him to continue to be a public representative. No doubt he would — rightly — say that he has a wealth of experience informing his work, devotes enormous time and energy to the task, is well connected to the needs of his constituents and passionately committed to their interests. Every one of which truths also applies to Gaybo.

Invalid, too, is the point the local councillor made about it being a bad idea to have a “forgotten” former TV star chairing a state board because the young drivers the state board is trying to reach would not identify with him. As a former minister, Dr McCarthy knows the statutory responsibilities of a state board chair. They don’t include being a cool rock star in order to achieve identification with a sector of those served. Public personification of a particular group is no part of the role of someone chairing either a state or commercial board. Nor is failure to so publicly personify such a group ever advanced as a judgement against the person in the chair.

Nobody, for example, expects to immediately identify the chairman of Diageo because they’re out there lowering pints in public solidarity with the drinkers of their product, Guinness. Nor does the individual popping a Viagra pill spend much time wondering about the age or erectile health of the chairman of Pfizer.

Gay Byrne’s role as chairman of the RSA is to ensure the authority delivers on its state mandate with energy, meeting or exceeding international best practice and operating at all times within strict ethical guidelines. In common with many chairpeople, he can fulfil that function as long as his intellect is still working, helped, rather than hindered, by NOT having to do a rake of gigs, as would the rock star who was suggested as an alternative. A retired executive has the time to read the welter of documentation such a board generates, on which board decisions must be based.

Byrne’s high profile may, on occasion, be an advantage to the RSA, but for the most part the chief executive Noel Brett does the talking, supported by the ever affable but concerned Brian Farrell. Byrne has never been presented, nor should he be presented, as the personification of the RSA.

What is of most concern, though, is the lack of response to the attack on Byrne.

This country has a huge wave of people at or close to his age, every one of them dissed by implication. Yet virtual silence greeted the remarks, maybe because people didn’t notice that it’s more than Byrne whose capacity, rights and contribution were discounted. After 50 years drawing criticism to himself, it’s easy to shrug and say “Gaybo’s well able for it.” The point, however, is that the central assumption: “age disqualifies and diminishes” runs counter to EU policy and to the campaigns into which Fianna Fáil-led governments have poured money, like Age & Opportunity, designed to make us value the latter section of the citizen’s life.

Perhaps, as soon as he gets his feet under the desk, the new chief executive of the Retirement Planning Council, formerly the general secretary of the PDs, could mount some swift challenges to this kind of ageism whenever it surfaces. Somebody needs to.