John Gormley ... "I actually found him kind of creepy ..."

Interesting post from one of the better posters over on Politics.ie. I'm going to reproduce the post in full as it acts as an antidote to some of the propaganda from the Green spin machine.

"Ryan can be smug at times, but behind that I do detect a real belief in what he says. Trevor can be away with the fairies, but again there is a real belief there.

But John Gormley comes across to me as someone who isn't real, who is an arch-pragmatist who will say whatever he has to, and do whatever he has to. And if that means on a daily basis doing a u-turn from what he said the previous day, so be it.

I don't know him well, but I did have a chance to meet him once at a time where the mask was off. I actually found him kind of creepy, which I never expected. Eamonn, Trevor, etc come across as being real. I was struck by the sudden feeling of creepiness I felt over Gormley. It was as if he was an actor who was out-of-character for a moment and out-of-character you saw he wasn't genuine. I have only experienced the same feeling of creepiness twice before, when meeting Bertie Ahern in 2007 and Michael Lowry in the mid 1990s. The Lowry one was striking. I had never met the man before. I was attending a political function, and at the bar with some political friends when he came over, with a "how are ya, lads" line and started chatting. None of us had met him before. We all that the same feeling - he was phoney, smarmy, and I wouldn't trust him one bit. And this was before the revelations about him came out.

Bertie turned up at my door, canvassing, oozing the ordinary man charm. I wasn't overly impressed, but as he left he took a call. I happened to be leaving the house and walked past him. He was like a different man on the phone - the ordinary man act had stopped, and I found him frankly creepy and phoney. The 'act' on my doorstep was just an 'act'. He was playing a role. I hadn't been meant to see the 'real Bertie' - it hadn't noticed me leaving the house and so wasn't in actor mode.

That was what I found with Gormley - that he is an actor playing a role. So when he has to lambast FF and talk about 'planet Bertie' he will. When he has to play the loyal and dutiful colleague of FF he will. When he has to launch unfair attacks he will. When he has to lovebomb people he will. But take off the mask and there is little there of any substance. I know a lot of people think a lot of politicians are like that. That actually isn't the case. They may over-egg the pudding a bit on the media, but there is actually substance behind the mask - and real principles and beliefs.

I don't find that with John Gormley. Yesterday's speech and today's interview confirmed that to me. He was uber-smug and superior, devoid of reality and utterly self-serving. And that is the sort of politics I detest in anyone. The public deserve better."