Sir, - re Vincent Browne's "Can trivial peccadilloes hide bigger picture?" I am mystified. Is he following in the great hagiographical tradition of borrowing from Old Testament stories in order to bless with the authority of the past the deeds of men whose mark on history is still uncertain?
His quirky article did not, of course, mention Mr Haughey but for all that there was no great subtlety: "David was in an arms controversy early on involving a ninefoot philistine called Goliath". The reader was asked to think of Charles Haughey in terms of David. Borrowing David's mantle to clothe the now exposed Haughey seems a charitable act. But ludicrous too. The title asks us to consider the larger picture not the minor peccadilloes.
So who was the Goliath of the Vita Charlie? Where did Charles acquire the 100 foreskins and as for David's possible homosexual relationship with Saul's son Jonathan, and his love child with Bathsheba, Browne's inclusion of these details suggests that the bigger picture requires plenty of canvas, so charged is it with heroic figures of libidinous excess.
Which makes me wonder. Is Browne giving in to the same weakness that afflicted Charles Haughey, his taste for mystification, his propensity to use mythological tales to gloss and glorify the exercise of power? Or is it myself who lacks the subtlety? Is Browne's article an exercise in delicious parody?
Somehow, I think not. Browne asks us to consider the bigger picture hidden behind the woman "whose heart is snares and nets". However, instead of unveiling this picture of truth, (the oldest myth of all), he offers the reader the scapegoat of a woman and the diversion of a myth. There is no bigger picture. The spectacle of the last two years provides its own testimony. - Yours, etc., Patrick Crowley,
Barrack St, Cork.