Is Bertie Delusional?

cork said:

The 07 manifestos of both FG and Labour in he 07 election were vote grabbing.

In the election prior to that FG wanted to compansate Eircom shareholders.

This was the bubble mindset.

FG wanted to cut stamp dut to re-start the property bubble in the 07 election.

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Did you bother reading the rest of my post? The bubble mentality of the time was created first and foremost by Ahern's auction politics. Tax relief for the victims of the Eircom scam was in only in the ha'penny place compared to the naked vote buying that was going on up and down the country. FG and Labour learned to their cost in 2002 that they had no hope of beating Ahern until they emulated him. Btw, all election manifestos are vote grabbing, what else is their purpose?

The biggest idiot in the Dail was running the country like a casino and his spindoctors and their media friends were contriving to create an impression among the public that he was a genius and anyone who opposed him was an idiot. Hence he was described as 'Bertie' even in purportedly serious news media and commentary when practically every other politician was referred to by their surname. The amazing thing is that despite the fact that Ahern's idiocy has been cruelly stripped bare in the meantime, people are still going around rehashing his and his cronies discredited charges that serious politicians like Quinn and Rabbitte were idiots or dunderheads - while the likes of Harney, Gormley and Dempsey enjoy millionaire's pensions at public expense.

There is a programme on tonight about Cowen and reading one of the reviews, it makes a point I've made before on AAM. That Bertie replaced McCreevy with Cowen after a bad performance in the 2004 elections, and suddenly became a socialist. The social welfare increases in the period 2004-2008 were huge in relation to inflation. They were done purely for political reasons.

T McGibney said:

Come on now, I think we've heard the old 'it was the fault of the opposition' line far too often at this stage.

And, regardless of your political persuasion, it is plainly ridiculous to describe Michael Noonan, Ruairi Quinn, Pat Rabbitte or Enda Kenny as 'dunderheads'.

The bottom line is that Bertie Ahern devised and executed a brilliant but unsustainable strategy of tricking the people by bribing them with their own money. And when the people's money ran out, he kept this up by borrowing until the economy collapsed.The politicians who didn't participate in this charade were ridiculed as 'dunderheads' (and worse), and the 'cribbers and moaners' who pointed out the fallacy of all of this were told to 'go off and commit suicide'.

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I’m not for a minute blaming the opposition for what Bertie did. I’m just pointing out that they weren’t an attractive alternative.
I wouldn’t describe the current government as covering themselves in glory. I had very low expectations of Kenny and he’s still succeeded in being a disappointment.
The only opposition politician that called for a halt to the massive spending programmes under the FF/PD and FF/Green governments was Richard Bruton.
Michael Noonan was an abject failure as FG leader and hasn’t inspired as Finance minister, simply implementing to the letter the policies of his predecessor.
I have a lot of respect for Ruairi Quinn but he’s not steering the ship or anywhere near the tiller.
Pat Rabbitte talks a good game but what’s he done?

I'm not defending any of those guys' records but surely it is a bit simplistic to label them all (including Bruton) as 'dunderheads'?

The bubble-era opposition weren’t considered an attractive alternative simply because they didn't have access to the national finances and couldn't compete with the government parties' relentless use of these funds to bribe the electorate. When you look closely at it, the parties in power were hardly attractive themselves?

T McGibney said:

The bubble-era opposition weren’t considered an attractive alternative simply because they didn't have access to the national finances and couldn't compete with the government parties' relentless use of these funds to bribe the electorate. When you look closely at it, the parties in power were hardly attractive themselves?

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I agree, my point is just that there wasn't a clear, attractive alternative.
Oppositions are always populist, that’s the nature of our adversarial system. That’s why I don’t buy into the “It’s not the government’s fault; the opposition were as bad” argument. My point is simply that a bland career back-bencher who was pushed to the front of the class and a former Workers Party TD who used to espouse the virtues of Soviet Russia are not great alternatives to what we had.