Follies of
New Members
Political
follies are distributed among politicians universally due to two factors.
Either they are new and have never learned the rules of their new role or they
are experienced and forget the rules today may not be the ones they learned
when they started. The universality of this
phenomenon is on the front page of the newspaper worldwide every day.
I recently
was in Ireland on my way to do a small seminar at Galway at the National
University of Ireland. Since I read any newspaper I can get a hold of, I
picked up the Irish Independent and read an intriguing story
about folly created by a newcomer to elective politics.
It seems Ms
Maria Bailey, a Fine Gael TD(member of Parliament) fell off a swing in a hotel playground
outside a restaurant on the 10 July 2015 in the evening. She went to the
hospital the next day claiming grievous injuries. Her personal injury claim
stated she could no longer sit or stand for long periods without experiencing
pain or discomfort. The following morning, she claimed she could not get out of
bed. Since a doctor could not be found
to assist her, she struggled down to the emergency ward.
She had a
severe headache and was in severe pain with swollen jaw and bite was off line.
All of this happened from falling off a swing with “both hands full” at 9:30
the night before. Her personal injury suite claims the “swings were
unsupervised” and “there were no signs to instruct patrons” who hands are full how to use the swing
safely. She was sitting on the swing to
have her picture taken by friends.
After the
incident occurred, she continued over the few days to campaign for a seat in the parliament. She
won a seat on the Fine Gael ticket 18 days later. In fact, she ran the Bay 10K in 53 minutes
and 56 seconds 5 days after election.
Then Ms
Baillie sued the Dean Hotel for 60,000 Euros. The hotel offered 600 Euros for
medical expenses. This offer was rejected. The hotel is fighting the case in
court.
The question
you might ask, ”Why is this story from 4 years ago on the front page of a major
Dublin newspaper for a week or more, in advance the European and local Irish
elections?” Ms Baillie’s case comes up
at this politically sensitive time because Fine Gael’s platform for re-election
is calling for reducing the personal injury claims culture.
She is the
daughter of a senior local Fine Gael politician and herself, an elected Fine
Gael official and is perfect example of how the system of personal injuries
claims are abused. A little paragraph in the article tells why it is a problem
for Ms Baillie.
When Fine
Gael was called for a comment on the case, there was no response. However,
senior officials were reported as being unhappy with the unwelcome attention
before the local Irish and European elections.
This little
tale from Ireland is like stories in the papers around the world about
politicians who think they are invisible to public scrutiny. You only have to
show anger or greed or disrespect or arrogance or stupidity once to begin to
get a reputation.
This Irish
tale began 4 years ago and now it bounces up into view. A similar case occurred
in Congress. From rural Illinois came a young Congressman who decided to
decorate his office like the set of the TV show, Downton Abbey, using his
congressional funds to pay for it. He was also using funds from his
Congressional allotment to pay for himself and others to travel around the
world. If he had asked one question of
the ethics committee, he would never have had the problems that led to his
leaving Congress after just 6 years of service.
As I watch
my political colleagues, I often think of Robert Burns, the great Scottish poet
who wrote: To a Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church: Oh, would some Power give us the gift to
see Ourselves as others see us!! It would many a blunder free us,
It never is easy
to see ourselves, especially in political life, because of the multi-facetted
view people bring to observe the politician as he or she walks across the
stage. It takes great effort to step on the stage which leaves little energy to
be reflective on how the performance is being received. Reading the audience in
front of you is a chore in and of itself. You can change your behavior in
response to your immediate audience’s reaction. The problem is that what you do
or say goes out beyond your immediate purview.
Who knows how it looks or sounds at a distance? Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and What’s App
have compounded the problem. Before the
telegraph you could say a lot of things in one place and know that no one would
know across the country for 6 weeks or more. No politician has any privacy
today, PERIOD. If a politician is going to survive and prosper, he or she needs
someone around them who will tell them the truth.
