Mr Rabbitte goes to Washington

You would be forgiven for thinking that political comedies in the US are informing Washington life these days. Anyone who had seen Wag the Dog was inevitably suspicious of the timing of President Clinton's decision to bomb Baghdad, for example. A question of life imitating art, rather than the other way around. Pat Rabbitte TD, in his new Labour Party cloak, seemed in danger of imitating art himself at a screening this week of Bulworth, the latest US satire. "You might be compared to Warren Beatty," one onlooker quipped, to which Deputy Rabbitte responded with knowing irony, singing "I'm so vain".

Bulworth, starring Warren Beatty, is the latest in a run of satirical films that seem to express an universal and certainly unhealthy cynicism about politicians. The statesman has become a fair target; not that it makes them behave any differently. We have seen John Travolta, as president, gorging on doughnuts in Primary Colours, while in Wag the Dog, Robert de Niro employs a movie director to stage a war on television to divert the public's attention from a sex scandal at the White House. When Iraq was under bombardment prior to Clinton's impeachment, who could blame us for thinking he got the idea straight from the movie?

Bulworth, conceived and directed by Beatty, tells the story of a US senator who has become weary of political falsehoods and posturing. In the run-up to the Californian primary elections, he takes out a big life insurance policy and hires a hit-man to assassinate him. At his final official engagement on this earth, Bulworth drops the platitudes and suddenly starts telling the truth. His handlers "go insane in the membrane" and lose the run of themselves as the senator begins to rhyme like an inner city rap artist to a brilliant sound track. After the initial nose-dive, his career takes a bizarre turn for the better.

How far-fetched is this - and what about the new Irish political culture of openness and accountability, we asked Deputy Rabbitte?

"Look, we have a Taoiseach whose poll ratings go up because he speaks the language of the inner city. And those of us in Oposition need to watch out, because if he starts speaking in rapping rhyming couplets as Warren Beatty does in the film, his poll rating might go through the roof.

"This is a more cool version than Arise and Follow Charlie, or the appalling dirge written about Bertie called The Man Ahern or something like that. White man's rap could catch on here. It's not my thing, but it's certainly an improvement on a lot of what's gone before."

Coming out of the film, Deputy Rabbitte instantly felt he recognised a few characters on screen. Not wishing to mention any names, he hinted at a legendary member of the press in this country who bore a close resemblance to one of the characters.

"There was a woman journalist in the film who rang a particular bell for me. She kept going on about contempt for the people and contempt for the press. Some members of the press can be so precious at times and I know someone in particular who is just like that."

Does it bother Deputy Rabbitte that politics has begun to be continuously debased?

"Yes, I am cheesed off at the trivial, negative and cynical commentary about politicians. Cynicism is so corrosive. But it's down to the fact that politicians themselves have caused a lot of it."

In the film, there are scenes where Bulworth goes into the ghetto, where he is most at risk and alienated. "Politics is not cool in the ghetto," remarks Deputy Rabbitte. "It dramatically shows that the ghetto is unplugged from the economy and from democracy. That view resonates in the unemployment black-spots of our cities of Ireland. It's only when Bulworth flips and starts rapping with the inhabitants of the ghetto that politics becomes cool again."

It was a very funny film, Deputy Rabbitte found. He enjoyed the portrayal of the spin doctors and how they cleverly used language that ultimately conveyed the opposite to what ordinary people might conclude from the words.

"It's a savage commentary on American politics. The first thing that occurred to me is that if you're into cosy consensus politics, then this movie is not for you, because it highlights the fact that there is no real difference today between Democrats and Republicans. Big business has its hand in the pockets of the politicians and vice versa."

Bulworth compromises himself by promising to axe a bill which is not in the interest of insurance corporations in return for a $10 million life insurance pay-off. This directly echoes serious healthcare policies under debate in contemporary American politics.

"National health is the issue on which the conservative right has pursued Clinton. It is the genesis of his problems. He appointed Hillary Clinton as minister for health in his first cabinet. She was toppled and her programme defeated. Beatty, in his film, highlights that public health policy is dictated by corporations rather than by the needs of people. Hillary Clinton tried to change that and was forced to resign."

We have not quite reached that level of cynicism in Ireland, Deputy Rabbitte feels.

"It's a very American movie. But there are some themes reflected in Ireland. There are certainly resonances of it in Dublin Castle, currently. But the extent to which politicians are created by big business in the Unites States is not yet apparent here. It is happening in Ireland already, but not on the same scale."

"There is one line in the film that I really enjoyed, when one of Bulworth's opponents accuses him of being an old liberal wine trying to pour itself into a new conservative bottle. Beatty himself was at one time an old Kennedy liberal but has now lost all his connection to idealism. We see Bulworth, who is at the point of despair at mindless platitudes and dishonesty, arranging for his own assassination. This decision releases him and allows him to articulate what he really thinks."