A Cunning Plan
According to constitutional experts, if Bertie makes the Aras he can’t be sent to jail. Unfortunately for him, his dreams of winning the Presidency appear to be mostly a fantasy on his part.
Eamonn McCann, 03 Oct 2011
I suggested a while back that if Bertie Ahern were nominated for the presidency he would have a fair chance of winning so long as he managed to stay out of jail. It seems I was wrong.
An accredited constitutional expert that I bumped into at the Picnic explained the pertinent point – that it’s practically impossible to bring a criminal charge against a serving president. So it wasn’t that staying out of jail might help Ahern win the presidency, but that winning the presidency might help him stay out of jail.
I’d given Ahern a chance of winning because I reckoned that the sort of folk who’d backed him for years in Dubland Central might be daft enough to vote for him as president. Ahern himself seemed confident. Other FFers, he jeered on that TV3 programme a fortnight back, were afraid even to venture into Sean McDermott Street. Whereas he, Bertie, remained the apple of the inner city’s eye.
I put this to the effusion of Dubs accompanying the aforementioned constitutional expert, some of whose mas and das had been plumping for Bertie since before time began and who wanted me to understand that if the gobdaw ever showed his jowly bake in Ballybough again, “They’ll be queuing up to rip his arse inside out.”
Intrigued by the colourful patois, I inquired as to how one ripped another’s arse inside out. “We’d practise on him first.”
Hell hath no fury like a Dub who’s copped on that his ma had been taken for a fool.
Here’s another difference between everywhere else and the way we do things here.
I am told and have no reason to doubt that top-notch teams of professional nit-pickers were employed to give Ahern a full-body inspection every morning before his evidence to the Mahon Tribunal to check that there wasn’t a shred of dignity left on him. Fit to face the day’s proceedings, he’d then shamble his way to the witness box solemnly to swear that he couldn’t for the life of him remember who the fellows were who kept stuffing fistfuls of €50 notes into his mitt every time he put his head out the door, but that he did remember clearly that none of them ever asked for or expected anything whatsoever in return.
Page 1/3 <Previous 1 2 3 Next>
©Hot Press 2012. Why be a member? | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | About Us Jobs @ Hot Press