Blogress and PR Sarah Carey reflected the instant response among many in the political/media complex, with a yawn and the 'ah sure, it's Conor; sure everyone knows he's mad'.
And the Freedom Institute compiled an excellent roundup of responses among Irish blogs, including Backseat Drivers, Best of Both Worlds, Brian Greene, Colm Bracken, Fuzzix, Planet Potato, Sigla Mag, Slugger O'Toole, United Irelander and Wednesday's Irish Politics Blog. [ADDS: Irish Eagle was actually in the chamber - well, right before it happened. Gavin weighs in.]
While there's a considerable amount of 'ah sure they're all bastards anyway' paralysing cynicism out there, FI's Richard Waghorne points up the frequency and intensity of interest in the subject among blogs, credits them with helping keep the story near the top of the news agenda, and asks "is the Irish blogosphere hitting the stage when it can set the news, as well as respond to it?"
It's a good question.
Our take is that Irish bloggers have not yet made that critical breakthrough, but could do so on this occasion. Here's how: do a Trent Lott on him. (continues)
Blogging 'made its bones' as it were in 2002, bloggers legendarily hounded then-US Senate Majority Leader, Republican Trent Lott of Mississippi, for comments he made at the retirement dinner of Sen. Strom Thurmond, who was an avowed segregationist in his earlier career. Lott made a speech in which he made approving reference to Thurmond's 1948 presidential bid - when Thurmond was an arch-racist.
Lott's remarks were met initially with the same 'ah sure that's just a Southern boy' cynical yawn that Sarah Carey and most of Leinster House echoes in local equivalence today. Most political reporters at the Thurmond dinner didn't think much of it initially, either.
But then bloggers, led by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, started digging out "new" facts and arguments about Lott, including previous statements that made approving noises about the Southern Confederacy.
More blogs piled on, and a consensus across political lines developed - in the blogosphere - that Lott's comments, taken together with his previous statements, severely questioned his fitness for office. Not long after, he was dumped.
Fredo's kebab reference offers a similar opportunity, but a core of Irish bloggers will have to use the medium for its proper purpose - to provide an outlet for slightly obsessed people with above-average research and communications skills. Taken together, the Irish blogosphere has never coalesced into a 'blog swarm' like that which unseated Lott.
Normally a political story like Fredo's kebabs dies in a few days - because there's nothing left to say. The function of blogs in these cases can be to prolong the life of the story by feeding the machine, digging up past statements that form a bigger picture. The resolute discipline of Fianna Fail and the acquiesence of the rest of the political class (including the main polcorrs who don't want to upset the apple cart or jeopardise their seat at the Dail bar) normally outlasts any public outcry.
In this case, however, because Lenihan's comments may make him unfit to represent Ireland to the Third World, they take on a different order of magnitude.
Conor 'Fredo' Lenihan is low-hanging fruit for a blog swarm; if the blogosphere succeeds in keeping the story alive and add to its force - not by kvetching about it but adding "new" facts - it will have made its impact on the Irish media scene and accomplished something practically unheard of in Irish politics - forcing a minister to resign under pressure.
We'll have to see. But here's a go at some reminders of Fredo's golden oldies:
- 1997: He made his first impression in the Dail in, when he came very close to accusing the Fine Gael leadership of being tied to organised crime. “I defy Deputy Mitchell, who is to follow me here in this debate, to offer an explanation to this House as to why a former member of the party is now about to face charges in the courts."
- 2002: Writing in the Evening Herald, Conor caused considerable turbulence by openly slagging Bertie Ahern’s Cabinet reshuffle, criticising the Government for being so “rudderless” that ministers were “sea-sick”. He went on to take Bertie to task for his “fabled reputation for being cautious” and missing an opportunity to take away the Cabinet’s “grey look”. “Brian Lenihan, at 43, is the youngest junior minister in the Taoiseach's line-up,” he continued. He was later at pains to explain that he had a friendly chat with someone from FF head office, who apparently made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
- 2004: Conor’s appointment as junior minister for overseas development shocks and appals many. And within hours, he found himself roundly criticised by nearly every major aid agency, for being seen to abandon the Government’s solemn commitment to spend 0.7 percent of GNP on aid. “"There has to be an element of realism here. We've had two years of retrenchment in the public finances, and this has had an effect on the aid budget. We've been blown off course a bit, and we can't pretend otherwise," he said. While he was praised in the media for honesty – the target was not being reached – he was rebuked by the Tainaste Mary Harney and forced to make an about-face.
His Progressive Democrat predecessor Liz O'Donnell called Lenihan's statement 'unconscionable'.
- 2004: Just a month later, Conor attacked the aid agencies for lobbying on public policy. “Some NGOs spend enormous amounts of money on advocacy as opposed to sending money to the Third World," he told RTÉ radio. He then seemed to accuse the leaders of some aid agencies of wrongdoing: "some very interesting results about the people who shout very loud on this particular issue".
- 2005: Just a week after the Asian tsunami devastated a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean, Conor went on a family sun holiday to Lanzarote. He attacked those who questioned the wisdom, and the good taste, of a man in his position taking a sun holiday at that particular time, as “low and despicable” and of creating a “complete sideshow”. As an RTE interviewer put it: if an event that killed 300,000 people, many of whom would be of interest to his ministerial brief, didn't justify putting off a holiday, what would? Conor replied that it was a 'cheap shot'. (ends)
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