One of the more noticeable characteristics distinguishing today's politicians from those of the past is the frequency of their statements. If you scrutinise the newspapers of 30 or 40 years ago, it strikes you that politicians then said something when they had something new to say. Today's politician, it seems, perhaps conscious of the frenzied media's desire to be fed, must say things for the sake of saying them.
This is one explanation for the many and varied pronouncements on the subject of decommissioning by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, some of which I chronicled in this column last week. In recent months, Mr Ahern has delivered himself of a dizzying range of statements, which have on different occasions appeared to support every conceivable viewpoint about what the Belfast Agreement might or might not require.
In the past week, he has been at it again. Speaking in the Middle East on Thursday, he told journalists that "all hell" would "break loose" if David Trimble tried to form an executive without Sinn Fein. On his return to Dublin, Mr Ahern sought to "clarify" this statement by saying that he had simply been attempting to explain things to foreign journalists who had the impression, in the wake of last month's agreement between the UUP and the SDLP, that the executive would be created automatically and would include two members of Sinn Fein.
"I was pointing out that that was not the situation," he said, "that Mr Trimble had made it abundantly clear to everyone for a long time that he was not going to set up an executive with Sinn Fein in it until there was some progress on decommissioning".
Mr Ahern spoke of the "Catch 22" now bedevilling the peace process. "I have been saying all along," he said, "we have to try to formulate some understanding with everybody that we can move this on by setting up the executive and, in some way, to make sure that what is written about decommissioning in the document commences."
If this is what the Taoiseach calls clarification, I am glad he is not seeking to confuse us. As it happens, his statement in the Middle East was perfectly clear and sensible. All hell will break loose if Mr Trimble attempts to set up an executive without Sinn Fein, and for very good reason: Mr Trimble has neither the right nor the authority to do this. In fact, he is already in breach of his Pledge of Office to the extent that he has delayed the convening of the executive, as laid down in Section 17 of the Belfast Agreement.
When the Taoiseach says that Mr Trimble will not sit in an executive until decommissioning has been implemented, he is really stating that Mr Trimble is intent upon reneging on his commitments under the agreement. What is worrying about this is that the Taoiseach appears able to report this in a dispassionate manner. Implicit in his remarks is an ambiguity about the basis of Mr Trimble's refusal, and indeed an ambivalence as to its legitimacy.
The Taoiseach appears to be saying that, since Mr Trimble refuses to carry out what he has undertaken to do, the onus is on others to go beyond their responsibilities, so that the deadlock can be broken. This would perhaps be reasonable were it not for the existence of the Belfast Agreement. In fact, the foreign journalists who presumed that the executive would be created automatically and would include two members of Sinn Fein were absolutely correct in as far as this is precisely what the agreement proposes.
There is, in other words, no need to "formulate some understanding with everybody", because such an understanding already exists. Mr Ahern appears at least to countenance the notion that Mr Trimble has a right to repudiate the agreement.
The strange thing is that so much of the present confusion is being generated by people who last April sought to subdue anyone who dared to question the historic nature of the Belfast Agreement. If it was so historic, why are we still mired in the same old discussions that preceded it?
And Mr Ahern is not alone. There have, in recent months and weeks, been repeated attempts, particularly in the South, to suggest that Mr Trimble, far from frustrating the setting-up of the executive, is actually bending over backwards to facilitate a recalcitrant nationalist rump. The idea has been advanced, for example, that the pre-Christmas agreement between the SDLP and the UUP, on the structure of departments within the executive, represented a concession by unionists to Sinn Fein.
But the agreement, as signed on April 10th last, already made provision for the detailed working of departments within the executive. There was no concession and no call for one.
And another thing: if the agreement contains, in respect of the decommissioning issue, what the Ulster Unionist Party now claims it contains - i.e. a clear, definitive commitment to decommission paramilitary weapons before the executive can be formed - why did one of the UUP's leading members, Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, refuse to support the agreement on the grounds that it contained no such thing? Either Jeffrey Donaldson is right or David Trimble is right. They cannot both be right at the same time.
This raises a further irony. One of the reasons we are given for supporting the Trimble position on decommissioning is that Jeffrey and his allies are waiting to pounce unless their version of the agreement is upheld.
But wait a minute. Surely those who supported the agreement in the face of such naysaying should not be engaged in advocacy for those who placed themselves in opposition to the agreement from the beginning? Those who now seek to pressurise Sinn Fein are actually saying that Jeffrey was right, and David Trimble wrong.
Why, then, did they welcome Mr Trimble's endorsement of the agreement? Why did they denounce not just Jeffrey Donaldson but also Bob McCartney's United Kingdom Unionist Party, for opposing the agreement precisely on the basis that it did not contain any solid commitment to decommissioning in advance of the setting up of the executive?
The sad truth revealed by those who repeatedly attempt to get Mr Trimble off the hook is that the Belfast Agreement was the over-hyped and oversold outcome of last year's pre-Easter hothouse, negotiated and signed in circumstances where there was enormous pressure on the participants not to disappoint the waiting world.
Mr Donaldson, perceiving that the agreement did not offer what he wanted, had the clarity, detachment and courage to walk away. Mr Trimble appeared to exhibit a different kind of courage: the courage, we imagined, to move a little closer to his enemies in the interests of peace.
But, judging by his attitude and behaviour in the 10 months since then, it is becoming increasingly difficult not to conclude that he was either, at best, seeking to buy time, or, more pessimistically, attempting to manipulate the peace process and in the process drive republicans back to war.