Only Mad Dogs And... Irishmen

By Patrick Hurley

Our presence on Fox real estate led us to banter over a circulating anecdote regarding the October visit of the Irish foreign minister, Micheal O Martin, to Fox Business News. Apparently, Mr. O Martin's accompanying entourage of foreign affairs mandarins were all trid a cheile agus ruille a buille in trepidation about exposing the good minister to the "right wing" channel. Ah, the Iveagh House mandarins. They're innocents really! There are no flies on Mr. O Martin. He's no vulnerable debutante.

Mr. O Martin's "rightwing" inquisitioner had been Alexis Glick. As Mr. O'Dowd informed us, Ms. Glick - the former Alexis Cahill Donnelly - is of Cork origin. That could explain a lot. Perhaps the Iveagh House mandarins are just paranoid about Cork people.

Gorgeous presenter Courtney Friel came hovering toward us like the mystical Speirbhean. Go an alainn ar fad ... as they say. All she was missing was the wand. "Must be one of ours, with a name like Friel," we uttered. Mr. O'Dowd nodded in the affirmative. We maintained a vigilant eye lest Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Monica Crowley, Jane Skinner or other ideological anti-Christs, who apparently inspire such consternation in the Iveagh House mandarins, might emerge from an office doorway or intersecting corridor. Nothing doing! Mr. O'Dowd, Ms. Friel, and ourselves were the only identifiable mad dogs of the Celtic breed abroad. Even "Fox and Friends" regular Steve Doocy was in absentia. On entering the studio, we jabbed Mr. O'Dowd in a last reminder: "You're deep in enemy territory now. Watch out for landmines."

We had elaborated for the producers an ideological schematic of the Irish media in New York, with the Irish Voice being on the extreme left of the spectrum, the Irish Echo also on the left, between the center and the Voice, and with the Irish Examiner, the sole presence on the moderate right.

While the other publications, with the anointment of Iveagh House, cater merely to the philosophical whims of the expatriate Irish Left, the Irish Examiner endeavors to represent middle-class, moderate, Irish-American opinion. Accordingly, we were perplexed that presenter Clayton Morris did not appear to grasp the inaccurate symbolism of sitting Mr. O'Dowd on his right and ourselves on his left. But as one political connoisseur remarked to us later, Mr. O'Dowd appeared on the viewer's left while we appeared on the viewer's right. So, perhaps, there was method in Mr. Clayton's madness.

What lessons, if any, could Washington draw from the recently unveiled hair-shirt Irish budget? That was the question to be discussed. According to the Washington Post: "More than $4 billion in cuts ... will slash salaries for 400,000 government workers while making painful reductions ... for such groups as widows and single mothers ... the blind and disabled children. Is this the ghost of America's future?" Brian Lenihan's budget, with its public service salary cuts, social welfare reductions and other expenditures was being held aloft as a shinning example of fiscal rectitude. "Such drastic steps have put Ireland on the front lines of a global battle against runaway government spending and exploding budget deficits in the wake of the financial crisis," continued the piece.

The issues that would be put were essentially: Did we agree with the Irish budget? Should similar measures be applied to the U.S. economic situation? In our brief segment of the 24/7 news cycle, where seconds are like gold, Mr. Morris, Mr. O'Dowd and ourselves would compete for about 5 precious minutes to issue effective utterances. For our part, we were determined to get in a blow for the hardworking tax-oppressed middle class, who would pay the penalty for the greed, incompetence, and negligence of the governmental elite. The garda, the teacher, the nurse, and the postal worker would have their salaries cut but the public service elite - the bankers and financiers who had brought ruin to the country - would evade the consequences. In any case, after necessarily and frustratingly curbing our Christmas Day celebrations - one wouldn't want to be the worse for wear on FNC - we were determined to tear strips off somebody.

Mr. O'Dowd kicked off with a bland, boiler-plate, circumlocutory statement - the hallmark of the experienced talking head - designed to hint at a blow about to be struck but in the end offensive to nobody, least of all to the Irish Government. What we gleaned from his inconclusive utterances was that Dublin would prefer "to spend their way out of the recession" but that option was not available to them. Not surprising from Mr. O'Dowd: Typical left-wing orthodoxy. And, as to be expected, he was giving the government a pass. We countered that command economies do not work. Cuts in government expenditure were necessary but these should be accompanied by tax cuts to resuscitate private enterprise, the engine of the economy. And so the discussion bounced back and forth.

Toward the end, as Mr. Morris hesitated for one microsecond, we jumped opportunistically into the vacuum to score one for the Celtic sans culottes: "I agree that cuts have to be made but where the cuts are applied is the issue. There are plenty of areas in the bloated administration of government to cut without touching the salaries of police officers, nurses and teachers. For instance" ... we hesitated stupidly ... as Mr. Morris, held back Mr. O'Dowd with a gesture and with an interested look implicitly gave us the green light to continue ... "the Irish Government has budgeted 10 million Euros next year for 'special advisers' to senior government ministers. Are these really necessary?"

As Mr. O'Dowd frantically tried to jump in, Mr. Morris blew the final whistle. "Niall, Niall. Sorry, Niall. We have to leave it there. Gentlemen, thank you. Okay, we can all agree that cuts need to be made. Thank you, gentlemen." And abruptly, the early morning joust on the national, perhaps, even international, airwaves was over.

We would have liked to have expanded on our few brief utterances. There's plenty of excess in the administration of government. Between tightening up on the wide-spread abuse of ministerial and parliamentary expenses - eight million Euros in tax-free and unvouched charges in 2009, eradicating the superfluous cadre of "special advisors," and ensuring that the civil service elite (a.k.a. "the permanent government") bear their rightful share of the burden, the wages of the garda, nurse, or teacher, etc., could remain untouched. And there really is no justification for Brain Cowen and his ministers to be earning salaries equal to, or greater than, those earned by presidents, prime ministers, and cabinet ministers of other Western countries, including those of the United States. As Fine Gael Senator Paschal O'Donohoe told the Sunday Independent, "the level of spending and the way it is spent is absolutely unsustainable ... there should be a reduction in the number of committees and a ban on all unnecessary foreign travel."

Several hours later we had descended from the dizzying heights of Fox News and were back in Woodside, Queens. We encountered the ubiquitous Kerryman from Glenflesk out on a stroll. "Go maith an maidin duit, a bhuachaill. I saw yourself and His Lordship on 'Fox and Friends.' The upstart scored one on His Lordship. Ceapann me."

We had not conceived of our televised interaction with "His Lordship," Mr. O'Dowd, as having been an adversarial contact. Our Kerry friend elaborated: "Mo lear. You got in the last word. That was a killer closing line about the guards and the nurses having their salaries cut while there are still plenty areas of government waste. His Lordship was like a thoroughbred chomping on the bit at the starting line at Listowel Races. He was so eager to respond to you, with your man holding him back."

We countered that perhaps Mr. O'Dowd was going to agree with our position. Perhaps we had been rendered delusional by the Christmas spirit. We were quickly snapped back to reality by the Kerryman: "T'anam an Diabhal. Are you gone light in the head? Are you going soft? Sure, everybody knows that His Lordship is the Irish Government's unofficial spokesman. He who pays the piper calls the tune. He's not going to bite the hand that feeds him."

And with that the Kerryman spoke a great truth: Mr. O'Dowd, a.k.a. His Lordship, dependent, directly and indirectly, in all his manifestations, on Dublin's largesse , is hardly an independent agent qualified to provide critical objective analysis on the Irish Government. Hang on ... Dublin's largesse? ... Did somebody mention expenditure cuts?

There we were, by dawn's early light, bearing the battle standard of the Irish Examiner in prosecuting a noble cause over the nation's airwaves, while all sane Irishmen were where they should be on a St. Stephen's morning: Safe and sound in their homes. An Orwellian quotation came to mind: "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."

Patrick Hurley blogs at: www.irish-american-news-opinion.blogspot.com