Not even the third coming of President Clinton could obscure this week's amazing developments at Dublin Castle.
It must have seemed to Bertie Ahern, as he basked in the reflected glory of the warm welcome for President Clinton, that it was the best of all possible weeks for Liam Lawlor to keep his much-postponed appointment with Mr Justice Feargus Flood. Saturation coverage of the Clintons' itinerary would surely relegate developments at Dublin Castle.
It hasn't quite turned out that way. The return of the Clintons did temporarily lift Ned O'Keeffe out of the political slurry, but not before one of the surreal moments that still makes the House fascinating.
Alan Dukes and Brendan Howlin had forensically set out the mounting contradictions threatening to engulf the Food Minister. Almost incoherent with indignation, Ned stuck to his script which included the defence: "I have not opened offshore accounts . . . or buried my business in foreign jurisdictions. I have not evaded tax."
The fact that the Chair was occupied at the time not by the Ceann Comhairle but by his former colleague Denis Foley was entirely lost on the agitated Minister for Food. Another pertinent fact lost on the night was that PD junior minister Liz O'Donnell did not support O'Keeffe in the subsequent division although she was in the environs of the House.
Indeed, the PD deputies were seen in animated conclave and were the last to vote on the O'Keeffe controversy. In the event, only Mary Harney and Des O'Malley went through the division lobby. All four Government independent deputies, as they are called, voted to support Ned O'Keeffe.
Meanwhile, word circulated on Wednesday night that Ned O'Keeffe had intimated that, if pressed, he would do a Ray Burke on it. Certainly, he seems under no pressure from Bertie to resign.
The week started with the agreement of the Flood tribunal to defer examination of Lawlor until the afternoon because the Dublin West deputy had to greet President Clinton at the Guinness Storehouse.
Whatever the later provocation, it has become clear that the tribunal was not going to be seduced into further adjournments. The more Lawlor's evidence brought to mind scenes from the novels of Graham Greene, the more determined was Mr Justice Flood to press ahead. If Lawlor wishes to revisit the High Court, he will have to do so in his own time.
Inevitably, Lawlor's conduct spilled over into the Dail. Ruairi Quinn was prevented by a decision of the Ceann Comhairle from putting a motion calling on Lawlor to resign from the Dail or co-operate fully with the tribunal.
Quinn tellingly made the point that every honourable member of the House felt diminished by the drama being played out at Dublin Castle. Although the Labour Party leader read into the record a standing order providing that "a member shall not be prevented from raising in the Dail any matter of general public importance, even where court proceedings have been initiated", the Ceann Comhairle would not permit his motion.
John Bruton sought to circumvent the rigid interpretation of Seamus Pattison by demanding that the Taoiseach make clear that Lawlor could not continue as the vice-chairman of the Select Committee on Finance which deals with matters such as banking and taxation. Amazingly, the Taoiseach would not even take this step nor did he explain why Deputy Lawlor holds the position of vice-chairman of such an important committee when, some months ago, he resigned his membership of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party. Surely if Bertie was serious about parting company with , him, Lawlor would already have been replaced as vice-chairman.
It was Ahern who at the outset of this Dail made the original nomination which led to Lawlor becoming chairman of the ethics committee. Although Bruton taunted Ahern with his record of prevarication on the cases of Ray Burke, Denis Foley, John Ellis and now Liam Lawlor, the Taoiseach continued to shelter behind advice that it would be "unhelpful" to the tribunal.
As ethical issues and questions of appropriate standards continue to erupt in Fianna Fail, Bertie's solution appears to be to refrain from condemnation and to allow the deputies involved to disengage from the party. The result is that on the finance select committee not only is Liam Lawlor, ex-Fianna Fail, the serving vice-chairman, but Denis Foley, exFianna Fail, is also a member. Both are accommodated in the Fianna Fail suite of offices and the ail party claims and receives allowances for both Lawlor and Foley, although they are supposedly outside the fold.
Unfortunately, low standards, principally in the State's largest Party, dominate political coverage. The routine business of the Dail repeatedly gives way to the latest dramatic news from one of the tribunals. A record was established this week when the Dail Budget speeches of the three party leaders went unreported.
Mary Harney may be no Des O'Malley but she must be under pressure to pull the plug in the current climate. There seems to be no end to the allegations emerging at Dublin Castle and yet the Government response - if it is a Government response - is contained in Bertie's proposals to continue large-scale business funding of political parties and individual candidates.
The unease of the PDs is evident, not merely in their reluctance to come onside in the O'Keeffe affair, but in O'Malley's attack on the Health Insurance Bill and his uncompromising statement of "disgust" at the temporary release of the killers of Garda Jerry McCabe.
"The Progressive Democrats," he told the House on Thursday night, "are deeply disturbed by the action of the Minister in releasing these people temporarily".
Bertie Ahern is on record as claiming it would be "dishonourable" to call a general election. The way things are going a general election may be the only honourable way to restore confidence in politics.