Astonishing behaviour – by both FF and RTE, the latter should grow a pair and tell the former to talk a long walk off a short pier. That the forces of the state are now seeking out the artist is practically Orwellian.

If we are now back in a state where satire is subject to successful government censure we might as well just start dancing at the crossroads again.

Suggests to me that Cowen/his office threw a wobbly (pun intended) re the whole affair.

Lighthearted as it may be, I think it’s quite a worrying sign. I know the paintings were unflattering but he’s the leader of the nation, should have a thicker skin, and shouldn’t be able to silence/demand apology from the media so easily.

With the reported barrage of complaint being received by RTE re this painting and Nob Nation sketches, along with idiot statements from backbenchers about RTE’s “agenda”, one could be quite worried about pressure on the Irish media.

RTE will be every much cap in hand to the government, surely, over the next months/years …

The man should be taking satire on the chin. As it is, a story from yesterday is now the story of today, tomorrow… he should learn the meaning of the Streisand Effect!

A shameful day for journalism in this country.

Check out the Photoshop extravaganza -

http://www.creativeireland.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25084

Wonder what Michael Kennedy TD thinks of the thread…

teeheehee

RTE did not need to aplogise and they should not have apologised. It was a legitimate news item.

These painting show Cowen exactly as he is and this is what FF dislike so much. He is a joke and becoming more so with each passing week. I am quite sure there are plenty in FF who would like to see him gone. His pride and ego are clearly getting in the way of right, honourable and proper decision making. It’s just NOT good enough and he is definitely nowhere near good enough. When he came to office as Taoiseach expectations were high and assertions of his intellectual prowess rife! I guess it depends on what ones intellectual standard is, but so far I haven’t seen one scintilla of evidence to support this. As Minister for Finance he made wrong economic decisions, without question, many of which have us where we are today. He was ‘impactless’ in Foreign Affairs and didn’t achieve one thing while in Health.

So yes these caricatures do him justice, indeed! Well done to the creator and more of the same please!

This is not simply about rights and freedom of expression, it is also about responsibilities and issues of taste and decency.

The paintings were an exclusively personal attack, and that was below the built. Whoever is behind them is not an ‘artist’, because his end goal is humiliation and stoking up the flames of disenchantment with the government. He seeks only to destroy, never to create.

The paintings are not satire, and some people say that it’s all just a bit of fun, but it is tasteless.

And yet the people love it because it gives them an excuse to get angry and emotional again.

Everything is wrath in this country nowadays. We’re fast becoming a nation of nihilists.

Both satire and caricature go hand in hand with public notoriety, those being par of the course.

To complain or whinge about such, will in the long run increase further satire. Thus runs the old adage ‘If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen’

At the end of the day every public figure needs to have a thick skin to survive, hence the intended pun of ‘Grin and Bare it’

Just in response to the above two comments, this is not entirely about the paintings anymore.

While they clearly were humiliating for Cowen and his family, RTE are ABSOLUTELY OBLIGED to report on something like this and capitulating so easily when pressed by the office of the Taoiseach is the opposite of what journalism should be about.

By all means, Fianna Fail can condemn these pictures on their own time but they have no right at all to dictate to our national broadcaster what they should and should not report on.

Cartoon mock-ups (far more ‘insulting’ and ‘tasteless’ than these ones) of world leaders have been with us for hundreds of years – these are no different.

Isn’t it about time that our nation of indifferent shruggers got pissed off about something?

Should we not become a bunch of nihilists when our elected governments and their cohorts have systematically stolen from us throughout our boom years, in the hope that we’d never notice.

I’m delighted to see the government utterly ridiculed by those who vote and it is not only our right , but it is our duty to make sure these criminals are put in their place and made to know that this nation has absolutely no respect for any of them and their cronyism, theft and bare-faced cheek.

You want to talk about taste and decency?
Look at the dole queues that our governments have created with their neglect and ineptitude.
The gov’t are lucky we only react with satirical paintings and not something a lot stronger.

And just to come back to the RTE angle again, they are a disgrace to global journalism .
Can you imagine Jon Snow or Jeremy Paxman apologising for a report like this??
Sad sad state of affairs.
Ahhhh, that’s better.

Katy – Brian Cowen is the Head of Government, a position to which he has not been elected by the people. The President is the Head of State.

Respect has to be earned. Cowen’s actions over the last year or two may not have earned him a lot of respect, but his reaction to these paintings certainly won’t have helped himgain respect. If he’d taken it on the chin and ignored it, it would have been much better for his image and his reputation.

Where was the humour in this type of picture? If I drew one of Mary Robinson and put it up in a public place – would this be a laugh?

It would be better for RTE to get away from tabloid news. Public Service broadcasting it aint. The funny thing is that people give them 160 euros a year for this.