Mr. Lee went to Leinster House. He then went home. Irish Politics is two bit flea circus to the Funderland of, say, the Athens of Pericles. George Lee discovered that being successfully courted by FG was all that Enda Kenny had in him. Other than that single master stroke, Kenny has shown all the political nouse of a particularly careless dog in a manger.
It's not clear to me whether or not George Lee should have left or tough it out, or take any last minute front-bench buy off. FG really didn't handle him well. He was more than just a crowd puller, which is what he was being used as. Some media reports, however, suggested that some in FG didn't like his profile or his brain. They liked him like FHM likes Abi Titmuss: clearly for her editorial skills.
Irish politics is funerals and medical cards and all the guff that comes when national politicians have to deal with the minutiae of the village pump, the preserve of the Maurice Hickeys of this world. Our politics of clientelism brought us the construction boom, the very state of affairs that will lead us to be next week's Greece. Do they care? Possibly, but Lee's assertion of an 'institutionalized' body politic seems too accurate to dismiss.
In the End Mr. Ree was in a very very ronery place. Maybe one day he could have made it, but he wanted to help in the here and now, in a situation he felt he could solve. In fact, that's not what politicians do. They fudge and cajole and gladhand. Are these the acts of statesmen? Nope, but then again, name me any figures in Irish politics who'd fit that moniker. There's more of a chance of Stephen Hawking moonwalking than managing to count such figures more than one hand.
Life in Leinster House, you see, has all the dynamism of an over 90's swingers' party, it's purring old boys and the mock solemnity of the parliament's hallowed halls: Floors as shiny as Jacky Healy-Rae's cowlick. Even the very foyer is emblematic of the republic's stagnation. For every Free State turncoat, there's some Anti Treaty gunman gawping at you. They should replace them with the most disturbing works by Francis Bacon they can muster overnight and shake them out of their cosy slumber. Meanwhile big farmers made good and teachers with no other promotion prospects strut around as if being there equates great intelligence or achievement. It doesn't. For many, getting elected involves getting enough yahoos down your local to put a number next to your name and hope that the maths does the rest. Then hold on for dear life so the Taoiseach's aide-de-camp can come wave you bye-bye one your way to the great Dail bar in the sky, whilst the least dimwitted of your offspring assumes what he thinks is rightfully his, which is all bullshit anyway.
George Lee knew this, though maybe not explicitly. Hanging on for dear life, is not about shaking up the system to which you cling. Reforming the banking system is not going to happen. Changing our dependency on construction and manual labour is never going to happen when the decisions politicians are happiest with are ponying up the cash for a John F Kennedy visitors centre or some such parochial nonsense. Two words prove my point: Digital Hub. Nuff said.
You may as well be straight with the electorate and shove off. It was the wrong place to go to, but the right place for him.
