Bertie is no Gorby
Like Ian Paisley before him, Bertie Ahern’s announcement that he will resign next month has been greeted with a plethora of political obituaries. Paisley’s resignation was presaged by suggestions of improbity and to say that there was a whiff of fiscal impropriety hanging over Bertie Ahern would be quite an understatement. Nevertheless these retrospective articles have in the cases of both men, at times bordered on eulogy. Columnists and colleagues alike, once a resignation has been tendered, have instantly begun to downplay and ignore the unfolding scandals which caused them. With Ahern, unlike Paisley, the praise has been unambiguous and almost universal. Fintan O’Toole’s article on Comment is Free has been completely atypical: “Allegations that he had taken large sums of cash from private donors while he was minister for finance in 1993 and 1994? That he had failed to pay tax on at least some of that money, even though he was in charge of the tax system? That he had been brazen...