Charles J Haughey, Bastard
Posted on June 20, 2006 - Filed Under Politics | 5 Comments
As the old media’s post-mortem fellatio of Charlie Haughey continues apace, I find myself moved to blog about the late former Taoiseach. I had initially intended to let the whole issue slide past me without offering any comment, but I’ve been so disgusted by the plethora of glowing tributes to the notoriously corrupt politician that I’ve taken up my online quill in outrage.
Unfortunately, I don’t know a great deal about the man. Having said that, I am not entirely ignorant of his feats either. I know he served as Taoiseach in three governments, I know he lived a lavish lifestyle at the Irish tax-payer’s expense, and I know he once took money from a liver transplant charity fund he set up to save the life of his close friend Brian Lenihan. There’s far more to the man’s legacy than this, but other sources are in better position than I to divulge such information.
One such source is www.pulicinquiry.eu. Gavin’s been blogging a lot about Haughey there in recent days, and there’s more on his main blog. Apparently Fintan O’Toole penned a fairly balanced piece on Haughey sometime last week, but unfortunately I missed it. How I would welcome one of his sanctimonious outbursts right now to counter the deluge of hackery trumpeting Haughey’s credentials for sainthood. The weekend review in the Times also ran a critical article on the fiend by Peter Murtagh, which restored my faith in the paper somewhat. Apparently the Independent has been excitedly comparing him to Caesar and WB Yeats.
I think the worst thing about the media’s coverage of Haughey’s death has been their blatant willingness to gloss over his tarnished skid-marked reputation. Everyone knows the man was a crook, and yet the closest most journalists come to mentioning this indisputable truth is to say that he was “controversial” or some such opaque adjective. The idea that people should only write well of him in the wake of his death is ridiculous; those offended by the truth deserve offence.
Apparently Haughey’s son said something like “Everybody hates Charlie Haughey except the people” at his state funeral. Judging by how the aforementioned “people” stayed away in their droves from the event, it might have been more accurate for him to say that “Everybody hates Charlie Haughey except the media”.
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5 Responses to “Charles J Haughey, Bastard”
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Twas Anthony mostly doing the Haughey coverage on Pub Inq … I will have to clarify the about page to reflect that two people write on it.
Ah, didn’t know that…
Sorry about kind of ripping you off with this post, my annoyance took a little longer to set in than yours. Also, I stole the ‘stayed away in their droves’ bit directly from one of your blogs, so apologies for that too.
You have to admire the way he avoided any real punishment by stalling and delaying justice until he was in the grave.
though at least hes getting a right toasting on the various blogs ive seen – at least compared to the various papers
Welkl said.