Michael Noonan has taken exception to articles I have written about him and Fine Gael in these columns since he became party leader - he did so repeatedly in a radio interview broadcast last Wednesday. The following is what Vincent Browne wrote about him.
On January 31st last year, when the Fine Gael leadership crisis broke, I asked what he stood for. I acknowledged he was clever and cute but wondered what his politics were. On February 7th last year I wrote in support of Enda Kenny as the new leader of Fine Gael on the grounds that niceness was a very considerable political asset - Bertie has it, Jack Lynch had it, Garret FitzGerald had it, Enda Kenny has it but Michael Noonan hasn't (neither have I, but that is neither here nor there).
Over a few weeks in March/April of last year I wrote a lot about Fine Gael and its finances, partly arising out of the Telenor affair but mainly focusing on one of the great wonderments of recent Irish political history: how come did Fine Gael raise such a huge amount of money when it got back into government in the period 1995-1997 when it failed to raise hardly any money in the period 1987 to 1994, when it was out of power? The questions about that were directed not at Michael Noonan but at John Bruton and it was John Bruton who got upset about what I wrote.
So far this year I have referred three times to Michael Noonan in these columns. On January 26th I commented briefly on what I thought to be a dismal performance by him on the Late Late Show.
On January 30th I devoted the entire column to Michael Noonan and Fine Gael. I argued that Fine Gael was now badly damaged by its association with sleaze and more recently by perceived economic recklessness over the Eircom shares and taxi-driver compensation proposals. I went on to argue that Michael Noonan gratuitously had made matters even much worse by seeking to justify his handling of the hepatitis C scandal on the This Week in Politics television programme of the previous Sunday (if Michael Noonan thinks, as he said then, that what he did was "appropriate", why is he apologising for what he did?).
AND on March 20th, in a column warning of the real danger of Fianna Fáil getting an overall majority, I argued that while the spectacle of Michael Noonan as Taoiseach may be "an appalling vista" for many voters, the prospect of Fianna Fáil being in government on its own is an even more appalling vista.
These comments were certainly critical of Michael Noonan and he may have perceived the latter as a personalised attack, although the point I sought to make was favourable to Fine Gael. In the same radio interview during which he complained bitterly about my hostility towards him, I asked him what he would do for the country as Taoiseach. The manner of his answer might provide a clue to the cause of his current difficulties.
Instead of boldly asserting his major big idea or ideal - such as fairness or equality or wealth creation or whatever (and later on in his answer he got on to some of these), he started to talk about what Ireland needed from its chief executive, the competence and organisational abilities required and how the chief executive should not be going around to pub openings.
Although, as I have acknowledged, he recovered and went on to talk about ideas, his opening response was the critical one and it was awful - vacuous, uninspired, dull. The ideals bit were almost an afterthought. And that is the problem. If he has a view about what he wants to achieve as Taoiseach, he fails to communicate that. The slogan on the billboards - "I will legislate for real social justice" - is clumsy and unconvincing.
All is not lost. It is still possible to stop Fianna Fáil returning to power provided (a) the electorate is reminded of the unanswered questions about Fianna Fáil and sleaze, (b) the electorate is alerted to the danger of giving Fianna Fáil an overall majority and (c) Michael Noonan finds out what he stands for and communicates it clearly and simply.
I DON'T mean to be hurtful to Michael Noonan by suggesting he find out what he stands for. All of us lose sight of what we are about at times, especially in conditions of stress. Remember Ted Kennedy when he ran for the presidency of the US in 1980, against Jimmy Carter? When he started out he lost ground immediately because he couldn't answer a simple question asked of him: why are you running for president. He clarified his own mind on that later and was inspirational but it was too late.
A way of finding out what you stand for might be to envisage what you would like to have said about you politically at your own graveside.
Michael Noonan stood for . . . The rest of that sentence can hardly be: a competent chief executive of the State, or being able to see around corners on a level playing pitch. There is more to it. Isn't there? Remember those leadership positions he talked about eight years ago now? Some of that perhaps.
And whatever it is must be communicated in clear and uncluttered language. Michael Noonan must restrict himself to positive campaigning, saying what he would do as Taoiseach - the negative stuff on "the squandered years" and Fianna Fáil and sleaze must be left to others, ideally to Jim Higgins, by far the best communicator in Fine Gael. And someone too must make the point about the danger of Fianna Fáil getting an overall majority, even if that conveys an acknowledgement that Fine Gael is in electoral distress (everyone in the country knows that anyway).
And if still he loses, what the hell?