In the book The Late Shift writer Bill Carter chronicles the battle to replace legendary American performer Johnny Carson as host of the Tonight Show.TV executives were faced with the choice of either safe, inoffensive, yet dull Jay Leno, or vibrant, edgy, but troublesome, David Letterman. Initially the network picked Leno but when his show began to flounder serious discussion were held to replace him with Letterman.
The key scene of the book sees a meeting of the head honchos of the network discussing whether to ditch Jay for Dave. Unbeknownst to those at the meeting was the fact that Leno had snuck into a closet in the room and was listening intently as the pro and cons of each man were batted around. Armed with this vital information Leno plotted and schemed to keep his show.
It is by no means a stretch of the imagination to image Brian Cowen hiding away in some closet puffing nervously on a cigarette with a Guinness in hand as he tried desperately to persuade the Fianna Fail delegates to pick him for the coveted role of party leader on Tuesday night.
Fianna Fail were faced with a similar decision to those network executives back in 1993 stay with the steady pair of hands or chose the younger more dynamic yet unproven model to try and save a party that was suffering from low ratings. Cowen survived but it was the equivalent of winning a stupidest person in the world contest. Yes you’re the best at what you do but what you excel at is been stupid.
On the other hand it can be said that there is something noble about Cowen wanting to fight on and stay as party leader. While the other rats have already decided to abandon ship he will play the role of captain ready to go down with the ship he has steered to ruin. Then again it might just be a simple case that Cowen is still hungover from that infamous Galway hotel session and thinks that he can win the next general election.
Most political pundits are predicting political Armageddon for Fianna Fail on March 11th. However what a person does in the privacy of the voting booth is very different to how a person may answer a poll questions, the fear of going against popular public opinion may change their answer. In essence Fianna Fail are like the bad guy in a horror movie you do not believe they are dead until you see their head cut off and despite numerous scandals in the past they have survived. During a interview I did with retiring Labour TD, Liz McManus, just after the last general election which was at the height of Bertiegate Mrs. McManus remarked how the polls leading up to the vote favoured a change in government but when judgement day happened the old guard of Fianna Fail survived.While maybe this recession and IMF invasion on our finances may be one hurdle to many for Fianna Fail, the notion they will be wiped out is fool hardy and short sided.
It is not like Cowen is going against people who the public are madly in love with. Eamon Gilmore is all sizzle and no steak and Enda Kenny reminds me of the priest from Father Ted with the boring voice that helped Ted and Co escape from the largest Lingerie section in Ireland. A result better than expected would look favourably for Cowen, that despite unprecedented outrage at his party they had avoided a total wipe-out.
In the end all Brian Cowen won himself was a seven week stay of execution on Tuesday night and proved to himself that there was some political game left in the old dog .It will most likely be his last political victory of his career, come March 11th he and his colleagues who have overseen Ireland go from a position of great wealth and stature to poor and a laughing stock put their futures in the hands of country fed up, disenchanted and eager to wield the axe. Sure isn’t that a thought scary enough to drive anyone to drink?
