Brian Cowen in the Mail…

…an interesting piece in today’s Mail about Brian Cowen. It’s written from a reasonably sympathetic viewpoint by Jason O’Toole and there’s some useful pieces of information in the mix… consider the following:

Taoiseach,’ I politely began, while we waited for the kettle to boil, as he buttered some crackers and sliced big chunks of cheddar for both of us to munch on, ‘do you know that there’s a rumour going around that you’re a heavy drinker?’ As we stood there in his modestly arranged family kitchen back in the summer of 2008, as I conducted a series of interviews with him for a biography I was writing about him, I’m sure I saw – if only for a split second – a genuine look of horror in Brian Cowen’s eyes. Immediately, I was left with the distinct impression that our then newly-appointed Taoiseach was flabbergasted that he was being described as, to be brutally honest, a lush.

Cowen is quoted as saying he almost never drinks around the house… although…

He admitted that he ‘would always go in’ to a pub ‘for a couple’ of pints ‘on my way home from a meeting’. He did so, he said, to unwind. ‘It is good to talk about other things and not to have your life dominated by politics. It takes up enough of our time as it is. You sit down with friends and relax and talk about everything – except politics. ‘I enjoy the craic and other things, local issues, local chat, sport. It’s part of what you do to deal with the heavy workload that you have. Different people have different ways of relaxing. But I don’t exclusively relax that way.’

And what of this?

And, of course, there was his infamous admission that ‘unlike Bill Clinton I did inhale’ marijuana. It was a quote, interestingly enough, that he’d concluded by stressing that he ‘certainly got more enjoyment out of a few pints’.

Or this…

Cowen has made no secret of the fact that he likes his pints. He can often be found in Digan’s pub, which directly faces the solicitors’ firm he helped establish before being appointed to the cabinet. Here you can find him having a few pints, enjoying a sneaky smoke and the occasional flutter on the horses; when he’d normally get one of the regular revellers to place a modest €5 or €10 bet for him in the nearby bookies. Digan’s also happens to face Mac’s Cabs, whom he’ll use to drop home to his house down the road. But it’s not the only pub in Tullamore he frequents and he will usually name different venues when asked for his favourite local haunt.

And, what of this?

He once told me that he initially picked Doheny and Nesbitts pub as a regular haunt in Dublin because, apart from being it being in such close proximity to the Dáil, its proprietor also just happens to be from his own constituency. And when he’s up in Dublin, Cowen now prefers to drink in the Dáil Bar because it is ‘the only private bar in the country that you can go into as a members’ bar’ without having any unwanted ‘exposure’. It would be hard to imagine him being able to enjoy a quiet pint in Dublin these days, as undoubtedly somebody would vent their anger at him. But it also appears that he might be starting to detect an occasional edge to the atmosphere in some of the local pubs in his home town. One source told me that in recent times, in one or two venues in Tullamore, the occasional drunken reveller can be heard muttering some snide comments under their breath about the economy when Cowen passes by them on his way to the bar for his tipple. If true, it is surely is a sign that the popularity of Tullamore’s most famous adopted son is not only declining nationally but also locally.

At the very least it sounds like the talk of a fairly hard-drinking culture at the top of FF is far from a caricature.

Two years ago, Cowen told me: ‘Thankfully, I don’t have many enemies – if any. I don’t think I have any enemies, actually. Maybe some would think ill of me,’ he paused to laugh, before adding, ‘but I don’t have any enemies.’ Today he probably believes that he has many enemies – not only in the opposition and in the media, but within his own shaky coalition government. But he is always sanguine about the attacks from the opposition. ‘I’m not bothered,’ he shrugged, adding, ‘Enda’s scriptwriters basically have the philosophy of playing the man and not the ball. They basically don’t know where the ball is! I think what’s wrong there – and this is the people that are writing for him – they are very disappointed that they didn’t win the last election and they are still transfixed with that angle of “Oh, he bought the election!” ‘They had policies, which you covered very well in one of your articles, Jason, that was far more generous than me on what they were going to spend! But he doesn’t accuse himself of trying to buy the election.’

In a way what’s most interesting is that O’Toole doesn’t hesitate to say the following:

Sadly for him, it’s hard to envisage Cowen managing to win a second term in office. His tenure as Taoiseach will probably be remembered for some amazingly daft errors – such as the medical card debacle – that one would expect from a neophyte politician. Perhaps, none more so than going live on air with less than five hours of sleep after a night of excessive drinking. Unfortunately, he has nobody to blame but himself.

And also the following:

‘There are times when you should have been a bit bigger about things – that will happen – but you’ve got to be honest with yourself in those situations. Acknowledge it when it happens.’ [says Brian Cowen]. Perhaps that would have been a much better comment for him to have made about the radio debacle, rather than relying on the ‘hoarse’ excuse that many cynics believe sounds just as plausible as Bertie Ahern’s defence of how he’d won it all at the races.