It's been a bad week for the Government, worse for those who'd come to rely on it to improve the conduct of public life.
And, in journalism, the high point of Magill's contribution to the Burke affair was followed by Independent Newspapers' fevered defence of their proprietor against real or imagined criticism.
Fianna Fail's defence slewed from dithering to desperation. Bertie Ahern led the ditherers; and when the last and loudest of these turned out to be Brian Cowen, it was plain that desperation had set in.
No wonder. The excuses were endless, repetitious and lame. It was all so long ago, they said. And, besides, the minister was no more. No favours were asked or given, they said. Anyway, the tribunal would see us right.
They'd forgotten, these FF defenders, how they'd had to be badgered into setting up tribunals for which they now tried to claim credit and to which they hoped to consign their thorniest problems.
Do you remember how FF and, indeed, some members of Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats, kicked and screamed against the Bills on ethics, payments to politicians and party funding?
Do you, by any chance, remember deputies saying FF didn't need lessons on ethics from anyone? Well, some of the same boyos are now saying that you can't apply the standards of the Ethics Act to things that happened seven, eight or 10 years ago.
The same cute hoors would try to persuade you that murder wasn't murder until the penny catechism came out.
Mr Ahern dithered on everything, from his upside down, treetop investigations into Ray Burke's affairs to the party's amazing handling of the information eventually discovered in its own back rooms. Mr Cowen snarled: was anyone saying the party had tried to conceal anything? Or that it had anything to hide?
No, Brian, of course not. But it sure as hell must have taken some effort not to find anything.
As to the information - who gave what to the minister, the party, or both? - Mr Ahern began by claiming the party had told the Flood Tribunal all it knew - before the tribunal asked for it.
Indeed, the tribunal had been given more than it sought.
FF, he was proud to say, had taken the lead in this affair. If it hadn't been for the party . . .
Oh, hell. If it hadn't been for the party, its leaders and their friends, most of the bloody tribunals would have been unnecessary.
Then he changed his tune: the party hadn't really told the tribunal all it knew - because, as John Bruton famously said on another occasion, it hadn't been asked the right questions.
And changed again, with the most feeble excuse of all: - FF, said Mr Ahern, had been legally advised that it had no right to do more than answer the questions the tribunal put to it. It couldn't go further and give additional information.
It's hard to say which version he and his colleagues expect the electorate to believe. I suspect it doesn't matter. This kind of guff isn't meant to be believed. It's meant to console the faithful and confuse the rest.
Credibility doesn't come into it. If it did, the Taoiseach would not have explained that in appointing Mr Burke he'd simply "underestimated the extent to which this and other controversies would dog the deputy." That sounds as if "this and other controversies" were like recurrent bouts of flu.
But Mr Burke first attracted national attention almost 30 years ago and has rarely been out of the limelight since, usually for reasons which Mr Ahern delicately describes as controversial.
What the Taoiseach underestimated when he appointed Mr Burke, and persuaded Mary Harney that all was well, was the way in which the opposition and journalists like Vincent Browne in Magill would refuse to be fobbed off with lame excuses.
Mr Ahern is no slouch when it comes to judging popular reaction to political events or media disclosure. And he must know that, reduced to personal terms, the issue now is not how Mr Burke fares at the Flood Tribunal but whether he, Mr Ahern, survives the "controversy".
As Mr Bruton and other opposition leaders pointed out again and again during Thursday's debate, the Taoiseach's credibility has been fatally wounded. But why?
Mr Bruton asked the question that's in most minds: "What special hold has Mr Burke over Mr Ahern's loyalty?" It's still as mysterious as Albert Reynolds's insistence on appointing Harry Whelehan President of the High Court.
Mr Ahern seems to have learned nothing from the fate of his predecessors. And the fact that the PDs and the opposition are unwilling to force an election suggests that they, too, want to delay the moment when they must face issues more important than any government's fate.
It shouldn't be necessary to remind them of Mr Justice Brian McCracken's report on payments to politicians. They praised it handsomely when it appeared. Bertie Ahern recognised the challenge and promised to raise standards in the party.
On page 51 of his report, Mr Justice McCracken wrote: "Notwithstanding the fact that there appears to have been no political impropriety involved, the Tribunal considers it quite unacceptable that . . . any member of the Oireachtas should receive personal gifts of this nature, particularly from prominent businessmen within the State."
On page 73 he explained why: "The possibility that political or financial favours could be sought in return for such gifts, or even be given without being sought, is very high, and if such gifts are permissible, they would inevitably lead in some cases to bribery and corruption."
McCracken doesn't say, "Oh, but no favours were asked or given, so there's nothing to worry about." What he says is that there's a very high possibility that favours could be granted, sought or unsought, and that the practice would lead in some cases to bribery and corruption.
Where, this week, was the sense that McCracken's conclusions had not only been read and praised but taken seriously? In the speeches of John Bruton, Ruairi Quinn and their colleagues and, in particular, in Pat Rabbitte's contribution, which quoted McCracken.
It was Mr Rabbitte who described as fevered the reaction of Independent Newspapers to the news that another company in the network of Tony O'Reilly's manifold interests had paid £30,000 - in a cheque made out to cash - to Mr Burke.
I recall how Independent Newspapers reacted two years ago to the suggestion that their daily, evening, Sunday and regional papers - clearly dominating the Irish market - might be used to promote their owner's other interests. Their representatives were outraged.
They also argued that their dominance would not lead to a lack of diversity in the industry in this State. Most members of the Commission on the Newspaper Industry accepted their arguments.
Now they can see for themselves the gap between promise and practice - what happens when a sensitive commercial nerve is touched.
A report by my colleague Geraldine Kennedy a week ago evoked a response that is best described as hysterical - I counted nine signed and unsigned pieces in two days.
There are more ways of attacking democracy than by the use of bomb and bullet.