He Came, He Saw, He Stared Into Our Eyes

By Charley Brady

It's one of those times that I really didn't want to be right, but you don't always get what you want.

Especially if the country you live in insists on electing time after time a group of gutless windbags whom you would not wish to have in your corner under any circumstances, let alone when being visited by Emperor Bonaparte Sarkozy.

Several columns back I said that if the Majestic One visited us there would probably be some serious sucking up from our corner. Yes, you guessed it. It did so come to pass.

As he stepped from his black BMW, tottering on his famous stacked heels and with right hand in left lapel at least we had one thing to be grateful for: he didn't have Bono with him. And was there ever a better reason for voting "NO" to the Lisbon Treaty than Bono's declaration of last week that he voted "YES" and could only conclude that the Irish didn't understand, as he put it, the 'concept' of Europe.

Bono being Bono, of course, he went one further and announced that the Europeans THEMSELVES didn't understand the concept of Europe. What would we do without him?

The U2 lead singer is strutting around his yacht in the South of France at the moment, so please President Sarkozy, if you want to make us happy in return for privately saying that we'll have to vote again until we get it right, could you keep him over there? Please?

You see, we poor peasants are kind of in a recession at the moment and the last thing we need is a wealthy rock star who doesn't pay tax in his own country lecturing us on the needs of Africa.

And look at the positive: if you keep him in France at least you'll have someone on eye level with you.

The President was on a flying visit - five whole hours, lucky us - to Dublin to, as he put it, listen to the reasons that we voted against his precious Treaty, just like his own country did.

Unfortunately the 'simply listen' line was a little bit out of date as by the time he arrived here it was well known that this was a salvage operation.

However, he persevered, I'll give him that: "I think that to come here shows a spirit of freindship," he rather grandly announced: "to show that there is a difficulty and perhaps I can help Brian [Cowan, our unelected Taoiseach] out of it because this is precisely the difficulty that I was up against in my own country."

Difficulty? It was a democratic vote. What am I missing?

Where do I start? This arrogant comment is out of line on just so many levels. Can you imagine any Irish politician having the gall (Gaul. Get it? Never mind. The Brady humour strikes out again) to visit France and casually announce that they want to help them out of the problem that a democratic vote has caused?

Said politicians would have been booted out so fast that the whirring sound you're hearing is Collins spinning in his grave.

But no, our Brian just stood there with a big goofy grin on his face.

What really hurts is that he has the brains to buy and sell President Sarkozy.

OK, that was bad enough, but the one that really did it for me was "NO" voter Patricia McKenna. A clearly smitten Ms. McKenna outdid herself in gushing chick-lit prose: "He had obviously been well briefed on the troublesome "NO" people and could tell me that I had failed to get re-elected to the European Parliament in the last EU elections, but that he however had been elected President of France."

Any normal man or woman would have indicated to him that as he was a guest in this country he could put his smarmy, condescending arguments where... (alright, the editor probably won't let me articulate this, but you get the idea).

Gets better, though. Back to Ms. McKenna: "When he spoke to you, he held your gaze and no matter what point you were making you felt you had his full attention, and you mattered. [And you mattered? Is this woman for real?] It is easy to see how he became the most powerful man in France."

Just when you despair, thankfully Irish-American journalist Mary Ellen Synon points out that it's just a roll of the dice that lets Sarkozy figure as head of the Union for a time.

She's one of the best journalists we have but I was a bit more concerned at something else she pointed out and which had gone beneath my radar.

Explain to me please just why the European Union has given 1.6 billion euros in funds to Turkey.

Why are we giving so much loot to one single Muslim country that isn't even a member yet?

Maybe I could ask President Sarkozy; that is if he spends more than five hours with us next time (and four of those seem to have been spent staring hypnotically into Patricia McKenna's eyes).

Labour Leader Eamon Gilmore continued the trend of letting us down by first announcing that he wouldn't be meeting the Great One and then, quickly remembering that here was a photo-opportunity not to be missed, relented.

Don't ever say "No guts, no glory" to our bunch of heroes. There would be a stampede as they rushed for their dictionaries - those who can read - in order to look up the definition of 'guts'.

Let me just cheer myself up with a letter from Paul Henri Cadier in France to the Irish Independent:

"Mr. Sarkozy's sudden conversion to the principle of popular referenda to ratify the Lisbon Treaty is a welcome turn around.

"Only last year he seemed to be dead against the idea. Nevertheless, there is joy in heaven when a single sinner repenteth. So I look forward to him "rolling out" this new policy all across Europe as befits his role as European president.

"We in France will be happy to oblige him in leading from the front. According to recent opinion polls here the vast majority of us want to vote on Lisbon, a desire replicated across the continent. Our political elites have stumbled across something that is popular with ordinary Europeans.

"This is an excellent start to his presidency!"

Now, little Napoleon, if you can get off the stilts that you borrowed from Bono in order to propose to Carla, perhaps you could listen to what your own people are saying for a change - instead of lecturing to a nation that had an honest DEMOCRATIC vote.