The vast bulk of comment and opinion expressed in response to the current RTE Haughey drama can be described as delusional drivel.
But even delusional drivel can serve a purpose and in this case it serves a very valuable purpose.
It tells us in very clear terms that the current ruling elite and large sections of the media are still frozen in the warped mindset of the Haughey era that enabled him to engage in a decades long career of criminality and betrayal.
In order to differentiate between the drivel and the brutal reality of what Haughey was and what he represented it will be useful to spell out exactly the true nature of this particular individual.
Haughey was a political gangster, pure and simple. He possessed just one talent – the ability to see an opening for profit when it was presented to him.
And that’s what happened when he decided to get involved in politics in the 1950s. Ireland had finally decided to abandon it’s decades long policy of isolation and in particular its idiotic economic war with the UK.
Haughey and his cronies (the men in mohair suits) recognised the opportunities presented by the progressive economic and industrial policies introduced by Lemass.
Ireland could have gone down another road at the time if the criminal had been stopped but tragically for Ireland and its people, he won out and began to infect the governance of the country with the disease of corruption.
For the rest of his career he plundered the resources of the State without fear of ever being brought to account. The diseased culture he created is still alive and thriving today.
Personally he was an obnoxious individual who betrayed his wife and family, a man who robbed the fund collected to save the life of his best friend, a man who threatened and bullied anybody who stood in his way, a man without principle, courage or morals.
But most of all he was a man who inflicted massive damage on his country and its people while all the time fraudulently posing as a man of the people, a great statesman.
In a functional democracy such political scumbags quickly find themselves behind bars. In Ireland he was protected and assisted by all State agencies in his criminality and honoured with a state funeral when he died.
He is still admired by a disturbingly large number of people, particularly those of the ruling elite and their supporters in the media.
We only have to observe the response to the current drama to see how successful the traitor was in corrupting the judgement, principles and integrity of so many people.
I’ll be writing about a number of those responses in the next while.