DURING AN INFORMAL press doorstep in Limerick last week, Communications Minister Patrick O’Donovan unleashed both barrels against an unnamed member of the Cabinet. Clearly furious, he railed against anonymous quotes attributed to a Fine Gael minister that had suggested that recent health issues (O’Donovan lives with epilepsy) raised questions about his ability to carry out his duties effectively.

These briefings, he said, were “the ultimate betrayal” – not just of him, but of people with disabilities or those with neurological and other life-altering or limiting conditions. Describing it as a “sad day for Irish politics”, he warned would-be stirrers, “leave my health out of it.”

Hours later, the Fine Gael minister was taken ill and hospitalised, and his party promptly formed a circular firing squad, simultaneously blaming one another other, while also hustling to issue statements of solidarity to their stricken colleague.

Politicians may come and go, but political dirty tricks are forever. It’s usually a form of stealth warfare, not so much a backstabbing as a slice from an unseen ninja star. It can take the shape of a scurrilous rumour whispered in the right ear, or of a brazenly false accusation of some sort of voter-repelling jiggery-pokery, or else a sly hint which has some element of truth to it to burnish its credibility. But it’s almost always aimed to personally wound the individual, rather than damage the party as a whole.

As the story was propagated by legendary gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, it may be entirely accurate or the product of an acid trip, but Thompson recounts how US president Lyndon Johnson was floundering in his 1948 Senate campaign. His dispirited campaign manager started a discussion about how they can outdo their main opponent, a pig farmer. Johnson was all for telling people the man has sexual relations with his four-legged barnyard friends. A shocked campaign manager was appalled, protesting, “We can’t say that! You know that’s not true!” In response, Johnson shrugged and said:

Of course it’s not true. But let’s make the bastard deny it.

Dirty tricks in politics are as American as baseball. And........

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