Charlie McCreevy is half-correct in identifying as a problem the way the Taoiseach makes himself available for interview to every media Tom, Dick and Harriet. Mr Ahern should take his Finance Minister's advice and give fewer interviews.
But, in addition to no longer seeking to appease the media by being available, he should also stop trying to tell each outlet or organ what he believes the audience in question would most like to hear. Mr Ahern's problem is not so much his media promiscuity; rather it is his desire to please at all costs and his seeming unawareness that everyone is always watching.
For the past six months, Mr Ahern has been spinning like a top, in every conceivable direction, on the subject of the Belfast Agreement and its requirements in relation to decommissioning. Each of his statements has been carefully tailored to the wishful thinking of his audience, apparently oblivious that the rest of the world is listening as well.
In November, on a visit to west Belfast, for example, the Taoiseach called for "speedier movement" on setting up the executive, which, he said, would have to be in place before decommissioning could begin. "The Government will insist on the Good Friday Agreement being adhered to," he thundered. "The agreement in the first instance says there will be an assembly. Secondly, it says that there is an inclusive executive. And thirdly, it says the issue of decommissioning is dealt with over a two-year period."
All of which was perfectly splendid except for the fact that, a couple of weeks previously, from the safety of Leinster House, Mr Ahern had loudly demanded that the IRA immediately commit itself to the decommissioning of weaponry.
"It would be immensely helpful if there was a statement from the republican movement of its commitment," he told the Dail. Republicans, he said, had more room for compromise on the arms issue than had the Ulster Unionist leader and First Minister, David Trimble. In the same breath, Mr Ahern acknowledged that decommissioning was not "and was never meant to be" a precondition to Sinn Fein's participation in the executive.
A few days earlier, at the annual Fianna Fail Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown, Mr Ahern warned about "deliberately impossible demands" and appeared to be saying that decommissioning was not a realistic option. As though to provide balance, he noted that the task of uniting "the people of Ireland or the people of Northern Ireland" would not be assisted by "holding on to every weapon".
A short time before that, addressing the Fianna Fail faithful at a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the killing of Noel Lemass at the end of the Civil War, the Taoiseach had warned about the dangers of getting bogged down in "side issues", by which he clearly meant the whole discussion about decommissioning.
Mr Ahern's interview with the Sunday Times provided an even more worrying example of his desire to have his words received warmly by whoever he imagines is listening at any particular moment.
The Sunday Times is a newspaper with no great love for Ireland other than the money it collects here in sales and advertising revenue. It has for many years called for a military solution to the Northern conflict and has accordingly been opposed to the peace process from the start. Mr Ahern, therefore, in speaking to the Sunday Times, cannot but be aware of certain truths about his potential audience; for example, that it is almost unanimous in its hatred of Irish republicanism and therefore sympathetic to the enemies of Sinn Fein.
This is the most plausible explanation for the disparity between the Taoiseach's remarks in his interview with the Sunday Times and the statement he made two days later in Dail Eireann. Speaking in the Dail last Tuesday, Mr Ahern said that, while it was not "politically realistic" to argue that the executive could be established without an understanding of how decommissioning could be moved forward, Sinn Fein could take its place on the executive in advance of actual decommissioning.
In truth, Mr Ahern's call for an understanding of how decommissioning could be "moved forward" is superfluous, because the agreement lays down in very specific terms how the issue of decommissioning is to be moved forward, as well as outlining the timeframe.
The more important point, however, is that the Taoiseach left us in no doubt that it is his understanding that the Belfast Agreement does not contain any preconditions to the effect that decommissioning must take place before Sinn Fein can be admitted to the executive. "I must be on the record of the House 100 times in saying that over the past 12 months," he said. "Such a precondition simply does not exist."
The impression has been created, however, that this is not what Mr Ahern said in his Sunday Times interview. He told the deputy Irish editor of the Sunday Times, Liam Clarke: "It is not compatible with being a part of a government - I mean part of an executive - that there is not at least a commencement of decommissioning . . ." This statement, Mr Clarke wrote in a letter published in last Tuesday's Irish Times, is "as plain as a pikestaff". Only one interpretation is possible, he claimed: "That Sinn Fein should not be admitted to an executive until a start has been made on decommissioning."
BUT it appears other interpretations are possible. The thrust of the Taoiseach's Dail statement - delivered on the day Mr Clarke's letter was published - was that there is no reason, other than the political obstinacy of the Ulster Unionist Party, why the executive should not be formed, complete with Sinn Fein.
The thrust of his interview with the Sunday Times, as interpreted by the journalist who conducted the interview, and indeed by the Irish Times editorial writer of Tuesday last, was to suggest the opposite: that there can be no Sinn Fein participation in the executive until decommissioning has at least commenced. These two views are not compatible; the latter view, as confirmed by Mr Ahern in the Dail on Tuesday, is simply wrong.
What is worrying, however, is that the Taoiseach, by virtue of the woolliness of some of his remarks and his desire to be popular with everyone, has fed the wishful thinking of those who have always wanted a military solution to the Northern conflict. This, in turn, has postponed Mr David Trimble's now unavoidable appointment with reality.