No sooner had Ray Burke's resignation been announced than the complaints began. Not about the events that had led inexorably to Mr Burke's downfall but about those who had drawn attention to them and pointed to the inevitable results.
Bertie Ahern set the tone for many when he spoke in the Dail on Tuesday of "a sinister development" in public life, "the persistent hounding of an honourable man".
Mr Burke, he said, had been driven from office "on the basis of innuendo and unproven allegations" in "a sustained campaign of incremental intensity". Neither his statement to the Dail nor the inclusion of his affairs in the promised tribunal on planning would satisfy his accusers: they wanted his head.
Worse still, though Mr Ahern made less of this than his critics and observers, some had already raised their sights to Mr Ahern himself. Even before Mr Burke's departure, John Bruton and others were asking serious questions of and about the Taoiseach.
Nor were these questions, of poor judgment and fumbling indecision, addressed by Charlie McCreevy and Jim McDaid when they chose to comment on Mr Burke's fate. But then drawing attention to Mr Ahern, his promises and problems was the last thing his colleagues wanted.
So they concentrated on the invaders at the gates in the hope of distracting the enemy within, for the time being at least. Better have the troops throwing stones at the Opposition and the media than brooding on their own lost leaders.
"Head-hunting," said Mr McCreevy, "has died out in New Guinea (well, it would). I don't see why it should be revived in this House." Quite so.
Head-hunting, like history, is a thing of the past; in Fianna Fail's case, the not-too-distant past.
There was Charles Haughey and Albert Reynolds and Brian Lenihan and Ray Burke. And before them Des O'Malley and Bobby Molloy and Mary Harney. And earlier still Neil Blaney and Kevin Boland and Paudge Brennan.
They're all gone now, though Jim McDaid had a second coming and Mr Haughey came and went twice and still remains a ghostly presence, whose legacy seems impossible to erase.
With so much to remember, so much to explain, you may think it odd that the Minister for Finance should spend so much time wondering about the source of an Irish Times report which brought matters to a head.
Ironically, given the angle of Mr McCreevy's approach, the most significant feature of that report was the doubt it cast on relations between the Coalition partners: it showed that Mr Ahern hadn't told Ms Harney about his inquiries into Mr Burke's role in the Haughey-Mahfouz passports affair.
A feeble attempt to suggest that Ms Harney had been informed came to nothing when it turned out that the person who had telephoned her was outside politics, not the FF leader who plays his cards face-up, and by the time she had the call, the Government had been formed.
During the week, Fianna Fail speakers gave the impression that there had been a rush to judgment with a series of claims about Mr Burke from the moment of the Coalition's arrival and continuing, without pause for response, until the end of last week.
But this wasn't a bolt from the blue, for politics, for Fianna Fail or for Mr Burke.
The latest bout of concern about standards in public life had started with Michael Lowry and quickly spread to Charles Haughey and anyone found loitering at the crossroads where politics and business meet.
It was Mr Ahern who promised, at a meeting in Trinity College in February and at the party's ardfheis in April, that in his organisation the old ways were over: "Fianna Fail will enforce a new set of standards for all its members.
"We will not tolerate any deviation from the benchmarks of honour, at local level or in Leinster House, be it in the past, present or future. No one, no one, is welcome in this party if they betray the public trust. I say this and mean this with every fibre of my being."
This was a brave statement, since Mr Haughey had been his mentor, and a daring ambition, given the number and strength of those in the party who'd served their apprenticeship in the Haughey years. Mr Burke, with a history of controversial activity that went back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, was one of them.
But the new leader's declaration was widely praised, here and elsewhere. And during the general election, questions about how he intended to live up to it were few and far between, though he told Geraldine Kennedy of this newspaper about his inquiries into Mr Burke's windfall.
Mr Ahern said he'd appointed Mr Burke because he was the best man for the job. Whatever his views about the Minister's qualifications, the Taoiseach cannot claim to have been unaware of the risks. And his dithering about the terms of tribunals compounded the original mistake.
He wasn't dealing with rumour, innuendo and allegations plucked from the air. It was Mr Burke who told the Dail that he'd been handed £30,000 in cash by a couple of strangers who came to his door. No questions asked. No strings attached.
Almost 80 per cent of those questioned in two opinion polls said they didn't believe him. Mr Ahern and Ms Harney did. Or so it seems: they refused to include the transaction in the new payments-to-politicians tribunal, then quibbled about its place in the tribunal on planning.
Were they blind to the contradiction between Mr Ahern's declaration or Ms Harney's record and the course on which they seemed set?
Had they forgotten McCracken?
Mr Justice Brian McCracken explained, in a style so clear that it won praise all round, why members of the Cabinet shouldn't accept big amounts of money from strangers, whether or not they sought favours in return.
"If such gifts are permissible," wrote the judge, "they would inevitably lead in some cases to bribery and corruption."
But, said Mr Ahern and Ms Harney, now ignoring McCracken, Mr Burke has done nothing wrong. And they were joined in the chorus by some members of the Opposition and the odd commentator. As if this were the end of the matter.
A Minister, said Noel Dempsey, gritting his teeth on Prime Time, is entitled to due process like everyone else. Eamonn Lawlor demurred. The Minister insisted. Due process, he said. Like everyone else.
Funny, that. On December 11th, Mr Dempsey intervened in one of Ms Harney's contributions to a Dail debate. She was beginning to say that every ordinary person knew what they'd told the Revenue Commissioners when Mr Dempsey chimed in with the reminder: "He was not an ordinary person." No indeed, he was Michael Lowry.
On the same occasion, Ms Harney made some points about which she may now care to remind Mr Ahern, Mr McCreevy and their Fianna Fail colleagues: "Because Fine Gael is getting a bad press does not mean we have a bad press . . . We cannot pick and choose when we decided to support the media."