There was a sudden outbreak of consensus last week in Leinster House. The consensus holds that denying rumours about oneself to journalists or authors is a bad move. After all, goes the thinking, the rumour is known to only a relatively small circle, so why share it with a wider one?
When I consider the current controversy about Bertie Ahern and the entirely false rumours which have come to surround him, I have an instinctive sympathy. I too have been that soldier, subject to the most malicious and false rumours for all sorts of base motives.
Against this background, it's all very well for people to talk about a small circle being in the know. If the small circle includes your peers, media and people you love, then it is a curiously small consolation to know that there are others who know nothing of the rumour.
No rumour is without consequence. For a politician the consequences are enormous, particularly at election time. During the last general election, for example, Bertie was dogged by the rumours now mentioned in the Whelan/Masterson book being serialised in Ireland on Sunday. Throughout the campaign these were
fed to new reporters coming on to the election trail in the classic nudge-nudge way. Several reporters, having checked the rumours and found nothing to support them, made it known to the Taoiseach's people that they had been on the receiving end of this planted rumour. Mr Ahern fought that election wondering when, rather than if, the rumours would appear in print as an accusation.
That's just one of the pressures arising from a rumour. Another is the pressure from colleagues, who do not always understand why the main victim, if innocent, doesn't come straight out and scotch the whole thing. This puts the victim under new pressures, among them the "you owe it to the rest of us" argument. The most insidious and disabling pressure, however, is the suggestion that innocence is questionable unless personally asserted. The innocent have nothing to hide, goes this one. You are innocent, therefore you must go public straight away.
Add to this the gossip column or magazine which makes coded references to the rumour. The person at the centre of the rumour cannot sue them, because the references are too imprecise to be actionable, but knows, nonetheless, that every time such a reference appears at least one reader says to another: "What the hell is that about?" and gets filled in on the rumours.
There is always, in addition, the fear of third-party "outing" of the rumour, as happened on BBC Newsnight last week in relation to Peter Mandelson. Once someone has, accidentally or with malice, publicly articulated a rumour, the next problem is the cry "Now it's in the public domain you should answer questions about it."
This cry was raised recently by several respected commentators who have asked Padraig Flynn to clarify the Gilmartin allegations.
The seductive argument is that the Commissioner, now that the matter is in the public domain, will be given the opportunity to put his side of the story and prove himself innocent.
But imagine this. The man or woman at the centre of the rumour or allegation - Padraig Flynn or whoever - does as advised, takes journalistic questions, answers them and says at the end: "That's it, that's an end to this topic."
We've seen this done by politicians and even by churchmen in recent years. And we have seen how unproductive it can be, because of a number of predictable responses. There is, first of all, the response that goes: "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"
The second predictable response when someone goes public on a rumour is "Serious questions remain unanswered". This is the safest journalistic "gotcha" in the business. It is employed shamelessly by people who should know better but use it to excuse their failure to ask the right questions at a press conference.
And then, of course, there are the commentators who parse the statements or answers given by the person responding to the rumour. Let's say the statement is "There is no warrant out for my arrest on espionage charges." The parser immediately says: "It is significant that Mr X says there is no warrant. The doubt remains, however. Have there been warrants issued in the past?" Or the parser goes: "The fact that no warrants have been issued on the espionage charges begs the question, was an investigation under way on this matter?"
Bringing up the rearguard, behind the parser, is the ultimate cynic, the one who never deals in facts or black and white truth, but whose watchword is "No smoke without fire", that slogan with its capacity to elevate obstinate stupidity into wisdom and insight.
The outing of Mandelson had other distasteful aspects. If someone libels Liam Neeson's marriage, he and his wife can, and did, sue, with some success. But if someone describes Peter Mandelson as gay he cannot sue, not least because to sue would be to suggest that being gay is a bad thing and that he has been damaged by association with the gay community. No progressive politician could afford to go down that road.
I believe very strongly that the public domain ducking-stool is a disgraceful and dangerous device. It allows some in the media to trawl in the gutter, all in the supposed public interest. But, more importantly, it erodes the proper protections around individuals and their privacy. Take, for example, the scenario where politicians feel obliged to prove themselves innocent of a rumour or someone takes on the obligation on their behalf. When the rumour mill runs wild, every politician needs to learn off by heart the Duke of Wellington's invitation to his accusers, "Publish and be damned." They also need to be increasingly wary of what was once a reliable journalistic convention, the "off-the-record" briefing, although I do not suggest that this convention was flouted in relation to the rumours about the Taoiseach.
What I do suggest, however, is this. One of the constant characteristics of Bertie Ahern, one which more than once tested my patience when I was in politics, is that he makes no decision until there is no alternative, falls on no sword as long as there are other options. In this case, despite his phenomenal personal popularity, he felt driven to talk, on or off the record, about these rumours. Knowing Bertie Ahern as I do, it seems unlikely that his decision to comment was impulsive. It may be that Bertie knew exactly what he was doing.