03.20.06
McDowell vs Bruton
At last! A decent row. How cool. I missed the news all day so made the huge mistake of relying on the 9pm RTE news for the full update. How foolish of me. They led with it alright but spent about 2 minutes on it and edited out the best bits. Nevertheless did get to see McDowell in full temper! Wow! He could barely control himself. He was soooooooo close to breaking down. So this was what I unleashed in my little leaking escapade. No wonder Moriarty was so pissed off with me…
But good ol’ Ricky is standing up to him, realising that there are far too many people enjoying watching McDowell take a hit. I love his response:
 “The Minister for Justice does not like it when the facts don’t support his inflated perception of himself.” (this quote did NOT appear on the news of course but on ireland.com)
The best account is on RTE Radio 1′s News at One. WELL worth listening to whole file (11minutes). Watch out for how McDowell doesn’t answer the question on how many uniformed gardai joined the force in the last year…and don’t miss his final comments.
So here’s the thing about McDowell, you see on many points I really admire him. On specific policy issues he is great on the North and stuff like the prison officers. He has a fine intellect, is very articulate and love him or hate him he stands up and says what he believes – straight. If there were more like him, politics would be better off. BUT inevitably, he has two major flaws: arrogance and lack of compassion.
He absolutely refuses to believe that anyone else might have a reasonable point to make. And he absolutely refuses to believe that some people end up in bad situations because they are born in the wrong place. He takes the attitude that the government provides equal opportunity to all and if you don’t seize it, that’s your personal responsibility and tough luck. He’d get away with that because a lot of people probably agree with him in this nasty little country of our’s but the arrogance will be his undoing. He is making too many enemies to last long…Of course, the snobby, self-satisfied residents of D4 will no doubt continue to vote for him….
Bruton’s full statement here…
McDowell’s here
Joe Drumgoole said,
March 20, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Sarah,
A beautiful spearing of an arrogant prick. Nice to see the gobshite falling immediately for Godwins Law . Roughly Godwins law states that the first person in an argument to compare a protagonist to Hitler (or another Nazis, e.g. Goebbels) immediately ends the argument.
Colman said,
March 21, 2006 at 8:51 am
Heh. Was he frothing at the mouth much? I thought he was going to cry. I hoped he was going to cry in fact. Nasty little so-and-so.
Failed to answer the question of course.
Daniel K. said,
March 21, 2006 at 9:20 am
I wonder if there wasn’t some tipping point (what did we call it before Gulf War II, I can’t remember know) in the whole performance. McDowell appeared to come out all guns blazing and firing in all directions like some caricature of a Hamas member at a wedding only to shoot himself in the foot.
angela said,
March 21, 2006 at 2:07 pm
The Goebbels family are furious.. demanding instant public apology…
Conor Delaney said,
March 21, 2006 at 3:01 pm
How come you don’t refer to him as Her Flick anymore….seems much more appropriate now….;-)
tom said,
March 21, 2006 at 4:05 pm
as i have pointed out elsewhere, Dr. Goebbels himself is “the Goebbels of propaganda”. What next, Michael McDowell telling us that Damien Duff is “the Roy Keane of football”?
A stupid thing to say on so many levels.
Daniel K. said,
March 21, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Hot Press did a piece about 20 years back where they referred to Fred Astaire as the Fred Astaire of dancing.
Oh, how we laughed.
angela said,
March 21, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Maybe Damien Duff is the Fred Astaire of propaganda!