To be attacked twice in one week by Irish Times leader writers is twice too much. The first reference, a rejection of my "rantings", must be a reference to my one and only outing on RTE radio news in this campaign - and, indeed, for the past seven years - when I called Mary McAleese a "tribal time bomb".
If a simple cutting remark can earn the epithet "ranting" it is not surprising that most people I meet seem to think that your leader writer meant me when, in the course of a call to close the controversy on McAleese, he denounces "Svengali-like figures that lurk on the fringes of political life" who allegedly have been "smearing her life experience, her community, her background and the tradition she comes from".
Now, the Republic of Ireland is not yet a Provo puppet state - but these words show that we are heading into the same moral fog which corrupted part of the nationalist community in the North into voting for Sinn Fein, a party which fronts for the sectarian murder gang which has been murdering their Protestant neighbours.
Ever since I pointed out that the McAleese candidacy was perceived by Northern Protestants as part of that tribal past I have been treated like some Soviet dissident - pilloried in the press, subjected to trial by television, refused any right of reply by RTE, my sanity questioned by Sinn Feinplanted sneers and smears in those sections of the media where they have friends.
Maybe I am mad. A person who perceives things which most of his colleagues think to be normal is bound to seem mad. And certainly many of the Soviet dissidents were certified insane. But since I believe myself to be mad in the American sense, that is angry, let me summarise what is driving me mad. A few weeks ago Fianna Fail sponsored a candidate, Mary McAleese, who represented herself as a bridgebuilder in the mould of Mary Robinson. Since I am in constant touch with unionists I knew from the day she was adopted by Fianna Fail that she was perceived by Protestants in Northern Ireland to be a tribal nationalist, but of course did not know at that time - the memo had not been leaked - about her positive attitudes towards the Sinn Fein party, if not its violent wing.
Accordingly, I took no part in the presidential campaign until John Caden contacted me to write a campaign blueprint for Derek Nally. As the memo had not been leaked at that time, my blueprint document did not make that much of the North. But when the first memo was published I was galvanised into action, against McAleese and for Nally. Nally's great strength was his opposition to Sinn Fein. Mary McAleese's greatest weakness was her perceived softness on Sinn Fein. To maximise his vote - and minimise hers - we urged Nally to take that tack at Trinity College.
Nally backed down, blustering that he was being asked to attack McAleese. Of course he was - what other way could he maintain momentum? Pat Cox, who was away, has now got him back on message, but he is still bellyaching in a bucolic way.
But I can say with clear conscience that there was no duplicity and no double-dealing on mine or John Caden's part. John Caden believed that with a fair wind behind him Nally might shade it. For myself, I believed he could at best come in third. But we both believed that if he highlighted McAleese's weakness he could come a respectable third.
Banotti would most likely benefit as a by-product, but we would have been happy to see Adi Roche or Dana do the same. The strategy would achieve all our aims, in Nally's case to do well, in our case to make sure that Mary McAleese would not become President.
And that was the point of all my actions, done out in the light of day. And it was with clear conscience - because I did not leak it - that I made use of the memo to highlight McAleese's bad politics. It is my passionate conviction that it is crucial to the moral life of our country that Mary McAleese does not become President. To elect her would signal to Sinn Fein that we are as ambivalent as those Northern nationalists who voted for a party tied to a terror gang. It is not smearing her "community" to say I believe that those who voted for Sinn Fein were delinquent to do so. My fear was that the same moral fog, that fog which makes us cough when we should condemn, could creep in here. I believe she concealed the full extent of her extreme nationalism in the early part of her campaign, and that my attempts to alert people to her politics were in the highest interest of my country, the Republic of Ireland. There are three main reasons why we should not vote for Mary McAleese. First, no matter how she may huff and puff about being involved in a peace ministry, or about being misrepresented, the leaked memo of May sets out her position on the British general election, while the armed struggle was still going on, with stark simplicity. "She was very pleased with Sinn Fein's performance in the general election."
Second, she came to us with a curriculum vitae which concealed the complete picture of her politics, particularly the fact that she could never be a bridge-builder. This concealment alone makes her unfit to be President.
Finally, unlike many of my colleagues in the media, I can see plenty wrong with voting for a candidate who is endorsed by Sinn Fein, which is still linked to a terrorist organisation. And I believe most Irish people would agree with me if they were allowed to hear my arguments. If I am wrong about my own people, then so be it. But of course I am not wrong, otherwise there would not be such panic among that amoral section of the media which argues that there is nothing wrong with McAleese saying she "understands why people vote for Sinn Fein". Not if she had completed the sentence by adding "but it is wrong to do so". Thank God such things still matter in the Republic. Southern nationalism, unlike Northern nationalism, is not yet ready to turn a blind eye to the dark side of Sinn Fein.
There has been nothing Svengalilike or lurking about my views and my actions in attempting to block McAleese. Negative campaigning may not be normal in Irish politics, but in this case it is a necessary, not to say moral, imperative.
My candidate at this election is ABMMAC - anybody but Mary McAleese. Far from being against Northerners, I think Dana a decent person, well worth a high preference. But I draw the line at ethnic politicians and grievance-mongers like McAleese, whose campaign has been, in the memorable words of Pat Cox, "colonised by Sinn Fein".
This controversy will only be closed on polling day. Meantime, the bullying, blitzing and banning of those who criticise McAleese's colonised campaign shows that the peace process may be both a political success and a moral disaster.