For the man who can't stop canvassing, this week was even worse. If the GAA "blood rule" applied in here, Bertie Ahern would have spent most of the week on the sideline getting treatment. His Government - divided on Europe, immigration and the dual mandate - attracted ferocious assault from Michael Noonan and Ruairi Quinn.
When Drapier said last week that Bertie Ahern should have sacked Eamon O Cuiv in the wake of the Nice shambles, little did I know all hell was going to break around the heads of the Government. If a junior minister, even one of O Cuiv's pedigree, can cheek his Taoiseach in such a provocative fashion, is it any surprise that more senior ministers think they can follow suit with impunity?
The result highlights the fragile nature of political fortune. With Fine Gael on the back foot, it seemed the luck of the Teflon Taoiseach would survive to general election day. Suddenly the Taoiseach is floundering and Michael Noonan has had his best week since the week following the defenestration of John Bruton.
Tom Kitt is sent out to warn of the danger of Fianna Fail being seen as a Eurosceptic rump and that "there is a need for someone to express the other view". It is remarkable to see how far things have deteriorated in a couple of weeks. Kitt has a fair point: why has no senior minister countered with a thoughtful statement in favour of the position advocated by the Taoiseach and his Minister for Foreign Affairs?
The reason is probably a determination to bring both sides of the road with them and the re-emergence of a peculiar brand of nationalism that was suppressed while Ireland was benefiting from EU transfers. The Sile de Valera prism on Europe would be recognisable immediately by the little Englander wing of the British Tory Party.
However, it was Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy's outburst that opened the dam that threatens to engulf the Taoiseach. All the evidence is that this was no accidental eruption by a Minister for Finance smarting from EU rebukes on his budgetary strategy. It was a calculated, deliberate statement by McCreevy, who has clear ideological difficulties with further EU integration.
The relationship between a Taoiseach and his Finance Minister is the pivotal relationship on which a government turns. While McCreevy does possess a reckless streak that occasionally breaks out, in this instance he must have known the magnitude of the wound inflicted on the Taoiseach's authority and on the Government's cohesion.
At the end of the day most senior politicians smile indulgently at the eccentricities and blatant opportunism of Dev Og. No such indulgence can be shown the Minister for Finance, who went within an ace of claiming the No vote as an endorsement of his Budget. Nor is this the first time he has lectured the Taoiseach. During the O'Flaherty crisis he suggested it would be in the Taoiseach's interest to do fewer interviews, which is akin to telling an alcoholic he should make do with a couple of pints a day.
If timing is everything in politics the intervention by Citizen McDowell couldn't have been better timed. In his private capacity the Attorney General had already advised his former leader, Mary Harney, that he detected a new nationalism abroad in the land. Allied to an analysis of the democratic deficit and inadequate transparency and scrutiny of EU legislation that cannot be gainsaid, this was a potent mix to pour on already troubled waters.
The hapless Taoiseach, meanwhile, in Scotland trying to negotiate customers to help fill the Bertie Bowl, mustn't have been able to believe his ears.
He returned to a party and a Government so riven by a number of disputes that according to Michael Noonan the British Tory Party looked united by comparison. While he was away his Tanaiste, attempting to reconcile why she has been scouring the world for workers while the Government refuses to allow the migrant workers here to work, made clear there is a fundamental dispute between her view and that of John O'Donoghue and perhaps others on immigration.
Meanwhile, Frank Fahey, with an eye over both shoulders to Dana and Dev Og, suddenly discovered that in 1972 Paddy Hillary and Jack Lynch sold out our fishing grounds to the voracious hordes from the EU.
Romano Prodi and Ruairi Quinn turned the screw. Quinn published a Labour private members' Bill that should have the support of Citizen McDowell if not the Attorney General. Mr Prodi made a pig's ear of all Brian Cowen's efforts to persuade the No lobby that Nice was about enlargement. Not at all, said Prodi, enlargement can and will go ahead anyway. We told you so, screamed the No lobby. This was not the first intervention by an EU bigwig that made the Government look foolish.
As the badly mutilated local government Bill wound its way through committee stage under the uncertain guidance of Jackie Healy- Rae, the dual mandate fallout spilled into Fianna Fail's rooms with deputies threatening to cross the floor. Noel Dempsey, humiliated by his Taoiseach's surrender to the gang of four Independents, is having his revenge by disallowing Oireachtas members the stipend payable in future to other councillors.
It is now a complete mess from which only the Labour spokesman Eamon Gilmore emerges with his reputation enhanced. His persistent forensic assault on Dempsey's stewardship is only now attracting attention.
And then there is Northern Ireland and the return to our screens of hate-filled images across the peaceline.