Dáil Sketch/Frank McNally: It's the peculiar genius of Bertie Ahern that after wielding supreme power in Ireland for almost a decade, he can still pass himself off as the little guy fighting a brave but hopeless battle against the establishment.
He was at it again yesterday when, lamenting the brevity of sentences served for murder, he quietly agreed with Enda Kenny that "life should mean life", and just as quietly regretted that it doesn't seem to.
His demeanour suggested a man exasperated with those in power for not doing something about this.
It took spoilsport Pat Rabbitte to remind Mr Ahern that he was uniquely well positioned to change laws if they were inadequate. But the Labour leader diagnosed a recurrence of the apparent powerlessness that afflicted the Taoiseach before the Dublin riots, after which Mr Ahern admitted he had heard "word" in his constituency that there would be trouble.
"Like you were some kind of man in the street," said Mr Rabbitte.
The Taoiseach's renowned intelligence-gathering operation was still intact yesterday, and he had obviously heard word that the Opposition would make a fuss about gun crime in the wake of Sunday's tragedy in Coolock.
Facing a barrage of heckling, Mr Ahern sneered that Fine Gael TDs had been "told to come down here and rant". But if he had been expecting trouble, he was again heavily outnumbered, with the Minister for Justice among the many Government TDs not present.
When Mr Kenny broke into the building site that is the planned Criminal Justice Bill and started pelting him with bits of promised legislation, the Taoiseach looked helpless.
Clearly annoyed by the opposition assault, he pointedly denied trying to shift blame for the Coolock shooting onto the judiciary. He hadn't mentioned the judiciary, he insisted, whatever "others" might have said. Amid the raucous exchanges, the flapping sound of Michael McDowell being hung out to dry was barely audible.
Martin Cullen also faced questions yesterday, and observers couldn't help noticing his fondness for two phrases. Unusually for a Minister for Transport, he regularly refuses to "go down that road". And, when discussing his political mindset, he likes to talk in terms of "space".
Challenged on the sale of Aer Lingus, for example, he denied occupying "an ideological space" on the issue. Later, on the break-up of Aer Rianta, he said he was in "exactly the same space" as his predecessor.
But the Greens' Eamon Ryan had no sympathy for Mr Cullen. He scoffed: "It's a weird head-space you're in, Minister". And on Mr Cullen's plans for the M50, he said, cruelly: "I wouldn't trust you to run a magic roundabout."