I look forward to watching Willie O’Dea goose-stepping through his first military parade”

Was watching The Panel last night and they brought up the whole Willie O’Dea scandal, and I had been meaning to blog about it last week, but then everyone was joining in so I didn’t bother. But now I think I may as well introduce you all to the Irish Minister for Defence

There he is in all his finery.
A bit of background? Well he made all the papers last week because of this photo, can you see him there. Pointing a gun straight at the camera. Tut tut tut. The opposition had a field day. And so did the press, which I thought was a bit unfair. Sure pointing a gun at anyone is always a stupid thing to do, even if it is unloaded, but they were asking for it.

And I mean that literally. He was being shown the guns at an Army Rangers something or other at the Curragh when the meeja-types asked him to point the gun. So a stupid thing to do, without a doubt. And I’m sure the meeja couldn’t believe their luck when he went along with it. I mean the Irish Times (where I borrowed the photo from) even titled it “make my day”

Says it all doesn’t it.

eight out of 10 people who phoned Joe Duffy’s Liveline programme yesterday were critical of his action

But in all honesty, more people seemed upset about this picture than about the fact that there have been a string of murders in Dublin. Sure they all brought them up, saying O’Dea was glamorising violence, but before his picture-malfunction there wasn’t non-stop coverage of alleged drug dealers and criminals being shot.

Still I did have to smile at Joe Higgins‘ comments in the Dáil:

[he]`asked Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney if she had asked O’Dea to `leave his weapons at the door’ before entering the parliament chamber.
“If not, I was going to ask Deputy Ferris to go down and disarm him,”

Deputy Ferris would be a Sinn Fein representative you see.

Then again, I have more of an issue with that moustache than I have with the gun. I mean, what is that thing?