Cowen upset to be asked questions

Poor Brian Cowen, you almost start to feel sorry for him then he turns around and cries like a baby to random journalists. The leader of this country comes back from a few weeks of holidays and claims he was ambushed by questions on the new Late Late Show with Ryan Tubridy.

Tubridy asked him questions about the economy, his role in creating the economic bubble that had burst so painfully and Bertie Aherns timing in stepping aside to let Cowen come to power just before the bubble burst. Tubridy did also ask Cowen about reports of his drinking but the leader of Fianna Fail managed to deal with the question in a good "everyone enjoys a couple of drinks at the weekend with friends" kind of way. Perfectly valid, who doesn't like the odd drink at the end of a hard week in work. I watched the interview on RTE Player and initially I thought that Cowen had come out of the interview quite well and he had gone up in my estimation. A man trying his best in difficult circumstances and holding on to the belief that what he is going is the right thing for the country as a whole. According to a survey run by the Sunday Independent 41% of people who watched the interview thought the same. Not bad for a politician who prior to the interview had a 15% approval rating.

Now it turns out that after the interview Cowen sat in his dressing room removing his makeup and cried to a Sunday Independent journalist that he had been mugged by Ryan Tubridy. For anyone who doesn't know Tubridy the idea of him "mugging" Cowen is laughable both physically and mentally. Tubridy is a light weight fluf TV presenter whose idea of heavy weight issues is a debate on who had the better tailor Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin. Cowen on the other hand is supposed to be the elected Taoiseach of this country, though he wasn't actually elected Taoiseach, he was appointed Taoiseach when Ahern resigned.

Whatever sympathy I had for Cowen after the Late Late Show interview vanished when I read his comments to the Sunday Independent. First of all why on earth is he crying and whining with journalists after coming out of a TV studio? Who allowed that to happen? Someone should be fired, either his press secretary for incompetence or Cowen for insanity. Secondly after all that has happened since he became Taoiseach where does he get off being publicly annoyed at any questioning. The man has led us into the greatest recession in decades. He has overseen a property bubble and crash. His budgets bought elections by putting this country into hock to pay for benchmarking. Yet at no stage has he faced the public and answered their questions as a party leader seeking election. I suspect Cowen now will never face questioning from the public. He'll be dumped by Fianna Fail before the next election. He is a millstone around the party, a walking talking PR disaster, stumbling from one bad news story to another. Get rid of him now and salvage what little is left of the government and the Fianna Fail party. Feel sorry for him if you want, he'll just go cry on the shoulder of a journalist and moan about how unfair life is.