Bertie Ahern is a dangerously likeable man. Standing beside him in a pub, you'd swear he was one of the lads. The trouble is he isn't just playing the part: he is one of the lads.
The office of Taoiseach has been vacant for some time and will remain so, at least until the general election; longer if Fianna Fail is returned to power. A Taoiseach worth his salt wouldn't have had to wait for his minister to tell him what a state the health services are in. And he certainly wouldn't have contradicted official evidence by pretending that all was well.
A Taoiseach who was serious about reforming local government would not have allowed four Independents to block a reform his minister considered essential. He would have accepted Labour's offer of support and got on with the job.
A Taoiseach who'd negotiated the Treaty of Nice would have shown his commitment to the development of the European Union and led the campaign to have the treaty ratified. He would not have confined himself to firing the odd insult at the electorate as the Coalition's efforts went down in disaster and woe.
And he would have accepted Ruairi Quinn's proposal of a forum in March, when it might have prepared the ground for an autumn referendum. Instead, he ignored the offer and blundered ahead as if he were building a football stadium.
Don't take my word for it - ask Miche al Martin, Noel Dempsey and Brian Cowen about the vacuum in Merrion Street. Get them to tell you about the dangerously likeable man who keeps his head down while they struggle with the affairs of state. Ask about the disaster of a Government that looks as if it's being run by some fellow at the corner of a bar with a pint in his fist and an eye on the box.
Anthony Coughlan of the National Platform wrote an open letter to Ahern this week in which he said that Eamon O Cuiv had "upheld the best values of the Fianna Fail party of Eamon de Valera when he voted No" to Nice.
The unconscious humour of it may be lost on those who need to be reminded of old Dev's opposition to the oath of allegiance to the King in 1922. And how he overcame his scruples by calling it an empty formula and marching his party into the Dail.
And there was Dev's grandson, 80 years on, explaining to Philip Bouchier Hayes on RTE Radio 1 why there was nothing odd about supporting the Yes campaign and voting No. Political consistency and collective responsibility? Empty formulae.
Not only did O Cuiv vote No, he then told the people who'd been persuaded to vote Yes what he'd done. Ahern found nothing wrong with this. It probably reminded him of the bould Ned O'Keeffe, another junior minister who "upheld the best values of the party" by campaigning against BSE while the family firm manufactured bonemeal, a suspected source of the disease.
Fianna Fail and the coalition it leads now have three different lines on the European Union. O Cuiv's approach is traditional nationalism - straight, as it were, from the horse's mouth.
Then there's the Harney-McCreevy line, not just suspicious of Brussels but of the centripetal force it represents. Mary Harney and Charlie McCreevy prefer big business and small government to European social democracy.
As for the third way, FF-style: that's where you'll find Ahern. Waiting, as ever, to see how the cat jumps. Willing, if need be, to ride two horses at once.
This all but leaderless condition is a very dangerous one for the country at a time of confusion of which the postNice shout-in has been the most obvious - by no means the only - example. In an early debate on how we'd get used to our European identity, an English writer made light of the problem by pointing out that somebody from, say, Wigan, would be European in a peculiarly English way just as somebody from Grenoble would be European and still unmistakably French.
Listening to callers tell Joe Duffy on RTE Radio 1's Liveline programme this week why they'd voted No, it occurred to me that we, too, are European in a peculiarly Irish way. Never mind the contradictions, feel the grievance.
For centuries we'd blamed Britain for all our troubles; now it was Europe's turn. The EU was becoming more militarised, callers said. But Sinn Fein, among the leaders of the No campaign, is in partnership with the paramilitaries of the IRA. There were objections to secrecy and faceless bureaucrats. As if the members of the IRA army council, one of the most influential groups in Ireland, appeared daily in the media on their way to meetings about decommissioning.
There were complaints about privatisation, the concentration of ownership and control in a few hands. As if the European Union were responsible for our notorious tax system in Cayman Ireland. As if we hadn't our very own Sir Anthony Berlusconi, to whose power and influence there appears to be no limit.
The EU was even blamed by some for our health services. The cruellest cut - in a week in which we hear yet again that ours is the worst service in the EU and the poor are the people who suffer most from it.
dwalsh@irish-times.ie