Politicians should think twice before repeating what they read in the papers. Take the headline "It's Payback Time" devised by someone in Middle Abbey Street to stand over an Irish Independent editorial on the eve of the general election.
It was instantly recognisable as a slogan for the greedy: the most pointed complaint in the article below was about the failure of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left to promise tax relief for the better-off. Three months later, as the Fianna Fail-Progressive Democrats Coalition celebrates the best Exchequer returns in 50 years, Mary Harney repeats that slogan without a blush.
Opening a conference on EMU in Killarney yesterday, she had the sense to add: "For the workers". And Des Geraghty of SIPTU supplied an even more important qualification: "Provided the relief goes to those who need it most."
But the trouble with slogans, especially those which have gained currency, is that qualifications, however well meant, are seldom heard and never remembered. If Mary Harney says it's payback time, then payback time it is; and the pressure will be on Charlie McCreevy to deliver.
The message was meant for the better-off in the first place, and it's the better-off who stand to gain in the long run. This, after all, is what the supporters of Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats voted for in June. No doubt it's also part of the return which some of those who contributed to these parties' funds expected.
Of course, it's not the whole story, and it's not a part of public life of which many care to be reminded. But as long as the ethical reforms begun in 1992 remain incomplete, while parties continue to be funded wholly or largely by the contributions of the wealthy, it will remain a feature of politics.
In the meantime we are being invited to look again at the conduct of public affairs and some strange reflections of Irish life in two other mirrors: the Burke enigma and the presidential election.
The Burke enigma is shorthand for a problem which didn't begin, and is unlikely to end, with Ray Burke and his political windfall of £30,000. But it's one that should not now be troubling a Government which finds itself with a fortune in hand and, in the North, the most serious challenge for generations.
Perhaps, in the light of the week's events, the botched attempts to escape the consequences of Mr Burke's own admission and to ignore the lessons of McCracken, the affair should be called after Bertie Ahern, not Ray Burke.
For the real puzzle, the Ahern enigma, is how the Taoiseach allowed himself to get into this mess and why he didn't act at once, when he saw where the problem lay. As it is, though he and his government remain in good standing in the polls, he has risked both his own reputation and the Coalition's security.
And for what? A week, a fortnight, at best a few months' grace before what looks increasingly like the inevitable conclusion?
As the argument about questionable rezoning and resistance to rational planning drags on, we are being asked to accept that this is still a world of wink and nod in which cute hoors grow wealthy beyond their wildest dreams and in certain circumstances certain councillors have their price.
The candidates in the presidential election are not entirely removed from party politics. But what they and their sponsors are asking us to do is to make a choice which hasn't anything to do with payback time and personal gain, but is at least as important in a different sense.
The election is about how we see ourselves and how we would like to be seen in the wider world. Because power, influence and patronage are not at stake the reflection may be clearer.
Some politicians - and some commentators - find it difficult to come to grips with a campaign in which few of the old strings bind the contenders. Even in 1990, two of the three candidates, Brian Lenihan and Austin Currie, were firmly anchored in party politics. No one had to ask where they stood on a range of issues on which the parties had already spoken.
As for Mary Robinson, when the seriousness of her challenge dawned on the opposing camp-followers, some of the criticism directed against her was even wilder, though less sustained, than that hurled at Adi Roche.
If, in 1990, Lenihan and Currie could count on support from those who'd voted for their parties in local and general elections, there's no such security for Mary McAleese and Mary Banotti now.
Deviations from long-established patterns were considered unlikely - or, to be more precise, not considered at all - in 1990. No one is going to make that mistake with Derek Nally and Dana in 1997.
It's clear that change didn't end with the election of Mary Robinson, the first woman and the first candidate who wasn't backed by Fianna Fail to become president. The changes are dramatic. Not only are four of the five candidates women, only one - Mary Banotti - is active in party politics and she's not, nor has she been, a minister.
Two, Dana and Derek Nally, are without party support, the first candidates to have been nominated by county councils. And two of the three who are supported by parties, Adi Roche and Mary McAleese, are not members of the parties which support them.
Much has been made of the novelty - some would say oddity - of it all. And, indeed, none of the five would have been given a second thought by party managers contemplating the Presidency before 1990.
The electorate isn't as upset as lads like Kevin Myers, John Waters and Eamon Dunphy: all macho fronts and prissy interiors, longing for the days when men were men and women knew their place; when parties decided and voters were neat and clean and well-advised.
The Irish Times/MRBI poll - taken before Derek Nally's nomination - suggests a remarkably high level of interest: when they were asked how they'd vote only 13 per cent of those questioned were undecided.
That was last weekend, five weeks before polling day. If this were a general election, campaigning wouldn't be due to start for a fortnight and the undecided would stand somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent.
But at the time of the poll only women had been nominated. Did that make respondents more or less likely to vote? Three out of four said it would make no difference, one in five that they would be more likely to vote, and only one in 20 that they would be less likely.
One of my most dependable colleagues in the polling business says that this apparent lack of prejudice may be because men, God love them, are loath to confess their opinions on such a delicate subject to women interviewers.
Of course. They'd be better employed on such manly topics as how to rake in the loot by crafty rezoning or discreetly peddling influence to cute hoors at home and abroad.
Now that the familiar patterns of party support have broken down, they may also have to hear what the candidates have to say for themselves before deciding how to vote.