What's worse - checking your notes or just winging and hoping for the best?

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (Brian Lawless/PA)

Ian O'Doherty Twitter Email

May 09 2020 02:30 AM

I'm no fan of either Leo Varadkar or the caretaker government, but we seem to live in a binary age where someone is either utterly pure and noble or hateful and evil.

In fairness to the Taoiseach, he has done a reasonably decent job of handling the coronavirus crisis.

Yes, there are plenty of reservations about how restrictive the lockdown has turned out to be, but there have been a few recent examples where he could have walked on water and people would have criticised him for not being able to swim.

His brief tour of duty back as a doctor was something of a photo-op, but it was a photo-op which helped to highlight the frontline workers. Nope! Not good enough! His critics accused him of playing politics, but that's what politicians do - the clue is in their job title.

Then, on last Friday's Late Late Show, the Taoiseach was asked a question about a meeting that had taken place only that afternoon. Unsure of the details, he took some notes out of his pocket before giving an answer.

This, apparently, was an example of Varadkar not being on top of his brief. But can you blame the guy? He knew that if he got any of the details wrong, the jackals would have been released.

We can't have it both ways. We can't denounce a politician for getting his facts all mixed up and then start having a pop when someone is honest enough to go looking at his notes.

On Tuesday, he offered Morgan Bullock, the young black, American woman who received racist abuse for Irish dancing, a spot at the next Paddy's Parade. It was a decent gesture to a kid who had been hammered by idiots. He got slaughtered for wasting his time when he should be focused elsewhere.

Since when did we start objecting to a small gesture of kindness?