The Taoiseach manages to exude an upbeat air at a time when the country needs it most, writes NOEL WHELAN
A STORY is told in United States presidential history about how, a few days after his inauguration in 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt travelled to pay his respects to the then 92-year-old former supreme court justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes jnr. After the short visit, Holmes is said to have turned to a friend and remarked the new president had a “second-class intellect but a first-class temperament”.
The story came to mind this week as I watched the pictures of our new Taoiseach chatting with US president Barack Obama at the annual St Patrick’s Day White House celebrations.
The Holmes quote is probably inaccurate and many historians now believe that, if he said it at all, Holmes was talking about Teddy Roosevelt rather than FDR. The story, however, is still often used as a launch pad for academic and journalistic discussions on how temperament is so much more important than intellect in the skill set necessary to be a great American president, and indeed for modern political leadership generally.
Only the very stupid or arrogant would chance to offer a view on someone else’s intellect. No individual can get to the top in politics without brainpower. Enda Kenny has more than many give him credit for. However, the most remarkable thing about our new Taoiseach is how happy he appears. He comes across as a man comfortable in his office and at ease in his own skin.
On one level, of course, he has much about which to be happy. After a lifelong career in Dáil Éireann, nearly a decade as leader of his party and now on the verge of his 60th birthday, Enda Kenny has finally reached the summit of our political system. He has endured more than 3,000 days and nights of painstaking party rebuilding, seen off many internal and external political enemies, endured the brickbats of an at times snide commentariat, and after it all is now Taoiseach.
If Brian Cowen as taoiseach had the first 100 days from hell, Enda Kenny as Taoiseach is having a heavenly first 10 days. In addition to the usual excitement of assuming office, and the homecoming celebrations, he has already had several turns on the international stage.
Last weekend he not only attended his first European Council summit but also got a chance to square up to Nicolas Sarkozy. This weekend he is the centre of attention among the top politicians in Washington. To cap it all, he learns that in just a few weeks’ time not only is he to be the Taoiseach who welcomes a British monarch to our shores, but will also get to hang out in Dublin and Moneygall with the most popular US president ever.
Carlsberg don’t do dream starts for premiers, but if they did . . .
Kenny is helped by the fact he has come to power after an election, and therefore with a fresh and direct public mandate. His success in the job in this first 10 days arises not just from this or from the accident of timing which has given him an initial diary packed with political star quality. It is because Enda Kenny has managed to exude an upbeat air at a time when the country needs it most.
In the few quiet moments he has had to himself in recent days, Kenny must have worried he will look back on this first two weeks as the happiest times in the job. The scale and cost of the bank restructuring will crash back into public prominence once the stress tests are completed in 10 days’ time. The size of the further fiscal readjustment required in next December’s budget will come back into sharp focus after further negotiations over the bailout conclude in early April. Even though he knows he will govern in very difficult times, Kenny manages to present himself as constantly happy.
It would be wrong to see this happy Kenny disposition as being just a factor of his assuming office. Thinking back over the last 9½ years, I cannot think of a single picture or clip of Enda Kenny in an unhappy pose. The aftermath of the 2002 election was a dark period for Fine Gael, but through it all Kenny was annoyingly upbeat. For the first weeks of the 2007 election, Fianna Fáil’s campaign was immobilised by the controversies about Bertie Ahern’s finances and it looked like Kenny might be taoiseach.
The aftermath of that election must also have been tough for him, but he just threw himself happily back into planning for another election. At that stage the Fine Gael leader could not have known the bullet he and his party dodged by losing in 2007.
The Kenny temperament is also reflected in his lack of ego or malice. The Fine Gael Ministers recently appointed to Cabinet by Kenny included Michael Noonan, who famously dumped him from the Fine Gael front bench when he beat him for the leadership in 2000. Three others, Richard Bruton, Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar, openly campaigned against Kenny’s leadership less than a year ago.
During the Fine Gael recovery project Kenny showed a knack for appointing able people to key roles, irrespective of his personal history with them.
He is not the first taoiseach who could be said to have kept his enemies close, but Kenny has not done it out of self-preservation. His attitude to enemies appears to be, don’t get angry or even, just get ahead. Noonan, Bruton and others are no longer enemies of Kenny. They too have had to revisit their view of him because of his stamina and success.
Ireland is set for some very difficult months and years. It will help to have a happy man at the helm.