If there are plans to revive The Odd Couple, let me be the first to put in a word for Bertie Ahern and Padraig Flynn. Jack Lemmon `. . . these are no ordinary relationships, and the party is no ordinary party. This is the leader who, as treasurer, was joint holder of a party account but didn't notice a £10,500 donation arriving in it'
Ahern has not eluded smothering influence of the past and Walter Matthau were made for the parts. At their meeting in Brussels on Wednesday Bertie and Padraig showed they were natural stand-ins.
Even before he lumbered into shot the Commissioner could be heard, sonorously reminding the members of his cabinet, "I believe we have some guests."
The camera and the Commissioner found the visitor together. He stood, uneasily, alone in the Irish Ambassador's residence, waiting to be discovered: "Ah, Taoiseach Bertie," the Commissioner boomed, "how are you?"
As they and the camera circled each other, Taoiseach Bertie muttered that he was in great form. The Commissioner ignored the tone. "Good-to-see-you," he boomed. "Good to see you indeed." It didn't look like it. They touched hands.
Taoiseach Bertie pawed the ground and eyed far corners of the room. Only when the Commissioner introduced his cabinet did Taoiseach Bertie smile.
Tommie Gorman sounded like someone who had come to measure the body language. Or, like Cilla Black on Blind Date, wishing the lucky couple well. Not since Tommie had shouted questions on one side of a closing door and the Commissioner had stood mute on the other had he enjoyed such a moment.
The interviewer drew another blank. The Commissioner said there was no need to go into detail about what had been said. The matter was now settled until it came up at the tribunal.
Taoiseach Bertie pawed the ground again and said there had been no discussion, "other than Padraig Flynn and myself going through the door together. I thanked him for sending me the letter because I was looking for it for some time."
The letter didn't mention the £50,000 that Tom Gilmartin claimed to have given Mr Flynn, but it did say Mr Flynn had been requested by the tribunal not to discuss or divulge any matters discussed with the tribunal.
But, Fine Gael and Labour had asked, how could this be squared with Mr Flynn's Late Late Show appearance?
Taoiseach Bertie and the Commissioner had met dozens of times since Tom Gilmartin made his claim but, with the delicacy for which they're both well known, they avoided the subject.
Another curiosity: their last meeting had been on December 23rd, though by general consent the most critical EU negotiations for decades are under way and Taoiseach Bertie says the Commissioner's role is pivotal.
Indeed, one of the reasons given for avoiding any serious discussion of the (missing?) £50,000 has been the need to keep relations between Dublin and the Commissioner on an even keel.
Now, it seems that two key figures in the negotiation - Taoiseach Bertie and the Commissioner - barely talk to each other.
Then, you remember, these are no ordinary relationships, and the party is no ordinary party. This is the leader who, as treasurer, was joint holder of a party account but didn't notice a donation of £10,500 arrive in it.
This is the Taoiseach who, when told of the £50,000 that apparently hadn't found its way to the party, said: "Don't tell me, tell the tribunal."
This is the leader who, on the point of placing Ray Burke in his cabinet, could only find it in his heart to ask if there was anything worrying him.
The leader who climbed every tree in north Dublin and came down empty-handed; who packed Dermot Ahern off to London with a single question which he brought home unanswered.
This is the politician who answered one of Mr Gil martin's claims by reference to the Taoiseach's diary, except that the diary was in Charles Haughey's custody and someone considered friendly to Haughey had to be sent to Kinsealy to check it.
Mr Haughey himself stood charged with obstructing the McCracken tribunal, yet Mr Ahern took his word for the contents of the diary and trotted it out in the Dail as if it were irrefutable.
Mr Ahern is regularly acknowledged by politicians and commentators as someone who has escaped the smothering influence of the past.
Given the examples cited here and his reluctance to meet challenges like the Flynn case, it doesn't look like it.
Of course, Mr Ahern and his pompous colleague in Brussels aren't the only leaders of public opinion who've presented us with examples of diplomatic deafness and indifference this week.
Liam St John Devlin explained to the Moriarty tribunal on Thursday why the question of Mr Haughey's debt was never on the AIB board's agenda.
"The reason," he said, "is that there was a general feeling among the board of directors that the less they knew about him the better. . .
"One could infer from the general mood of the directors that it was better not to know too much because of the extreme sensitivity of the matter based on Mr Haughey's standing and the extent of national support for him."
A retired chief executive of AIB, James Fitzpatrick, put it more succinctly: "If he had a very strong following and if we took action that was seen to be damaging to him, it could have repercussions on the bank's business."
And this is the bank, the national institution, which saw fit to dismiss in crude and deceptive terms a report by Des Crowley of the Evening Press which came closer than any other to the truth of Haughey's financial standing in the early 1980s.
Haughey was not, as many of his admirers thought (and think), some latter-day Robin Hood. He may have been out to rob the rich - AIB and the people from whom his agents begged or borrowed money.
The funds didn't go to the poor; he served himself. Indeed, the public policies he followed in the late 1980s were crudely based on those of the prime minister he hated most, Margaret Thatcher.
The cuts in public services, which he first opposed, then implemented, had the backing of two outfits he despised - Fine Gael and the banks - and the support of many commentators.
But he was never much bothered by the source of support; he thrived on the acquiescence of those, in AIB or politics, who didn't care to ask too many questions for fear of what they would find out.