At the end, nothing became Ray Burke so well as the manner of his going. In his statement ail on Tuesday afternoon, he gave the importance of the Northern Ireland talks as the main reason for this resignation. "I believe that the holder of my office must be allowed the opportunity of giving total focus to these most pressing issues" he said, explaining that this was impossible for him in the present circumstances.
This measured and direct statement went a good way, at least for this reporter, to justify his claim that he had always tried "to serve my country to the best of my ability". It put the issue in a proper political perspective and was mercifully free from the mawkish recriminations against his critics which so often figure in these farewells.
It makes it all the more depressing that Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fail, instead of recognising and matching Mr Burke's dignity, should have reverted to the tedious old rubbish about "the persistent hounding of an honourable man" by the media. It's rubbish because serious questions had been raised about Mr Burke's conduct as a politician and most people would regard it as the legitimate function - duty even - of journalists to try and get answers to them. It is an instinct with most politicians to turn on "the meejia" when they need to draw the wagons around the tribal campfire. Fianna Fail is no worse than other political parties in this respect. But already it's evident, in telephone calls to radio chat shows and so on, that journalists are once again being accused of driving wholly innocent politicians from public life. It's worth recalling, in the interests of accuracy and a certain professional humility, just how the present spate of scandals came to light.
No journalist was involved in giving large sums of money to a working politician, let alone in setting up offshore bank accounts. The story about Mr Burke came into the public domain because a disaffected employee of the building company involved believed he had been unfairly treated and was determined to tell his story.
It was the same with the revelations about Ben Dunne and his extraordinary gifts to Charles Haughey and others. It is unlikely that we would ever have learnt about the arrangements made to fund the former Taoiseach's lifestyle but for the quarrel between Mr Dunne and his siblings, which is not to detract from the importance of Sam Smyth's original scoop.
There were rumours, of course, in the corridors of Leinster House, particularly about Mr Haughey's wealth. We heard stories about the allocation of government contracts, of huge profits made on conveniently available building sites, of scams on European funds, even of gifts of diamond necklaces and bejewelled daggers. But if there was an accusation to be levelled at the Irish media during what is still loosely called "the Haughey Era", it was how little time and what meagre resources were devoted to probing and investigating these rumours.
A handful of individual journalists proved to be honourable exceptions but, on the whole, far from hounding politicians the media gave them a very easy ride. Let us not forget that even the first of the famous "show tribunals", the inquiry into the beef industry, was set up as the result of a report on Granada TV's World in Action programme.
Irish journalists had been accustomed to treating politicians with discretion, rather priding themselves on not reporting on either the financial affairs or the private lives of individual TDs or ministers. In most societies there is a degree of mutual interdependence between journalists and politicians.
Journalists want to keep their sources reasonably happy, politicians want to ensure good coverage of their exploits. But in Ireland, which is a small and gregarious society, this interdependence has been - at least in my experience - much closer than in London, the other place I have worked.
It shouldn't make any difference, but it is in fact much more difficult to write a cold and critical piece about a politician if you know that you are going to meet him or her the next day. I've certainly been guilty of softening reports, or not writing at all about politicians of whom I could have been extremely critical, either because I knew they had a domestic problem or dreaded the phone calls from angry friends attacking me for "picking" on this or that individual.
There were and are more serious reasons which inhibit the vigorous media which we badly need. The libel laws and their application in the courts are the most obvious example. There is the harsh economic reality that investigative journalism of the kind needed to examine meticulously allegations of financial wrongdoing costs a lot of money.
But beyond all this, there was another reason for a certain docility among journalists. Mr Burke touched on it when he said that the rules in 1989, when he accepted £30,000 in cash as a political contribution, were different. The challenge facing not only Bertie Ahern but the whole body politic is to convince us not only that the rules have changed, but that they will be enforced without fear or favour.
That means coming to terms, in a way that has not yet been done, with the legacy of the Haughey era. We should not personalise this unduly, since it is important to our growing political maturity to recognise that the former Taoiseach, however great his present disgrace, did render some service to the State. But it is becoming steadily more evident how far Mr Haughey's code of what was acceptable in politics eroded standards in public life.
Examples are the passports for sale affair and the fact that none of the politicians who have been involved in investigating it saw any cause for concern beyond the infringement of "minor" technicalities. Even now, nobody seems prepared to question whether Mr Burke and the Department of Justice could have resisted Mr Haughey's demand that the passports be prepared so that he could hand them over, in the manner of a desert sheikh, to his Arab guests.
Last week, John Bruton said the Taoiseach had told him that he could "finger" up to nine politicians who had received donations as large or larger than the £30,000 which has led to Mr Burke's departure from public life. If this is true, Mr Ahern should tell us how he proposes to deal with these errant politicians. If, on the other hand, the Taoiseach refuses to elaborate further, then we must hope that Irish journalists will pursue the task of discovering what sums of money have been paid to whom and in what circumstances.
As the man said: "News is what someone, somewhere does not want to see published. The rest is advertising."