Bertie's address to Congress

I thought Bertie delivered his speech well, including some pertinent advice for the US on the need for a multilateral, rather than unilateral, approach to international action. And, thankfully, no pompous, self-serving references from greek mythology.

However, what impact had the speech in the US itself, rather than here in Ireland?

On Morning Ireland, a Washington-based reviewer reported that the print editions of 3 US papers, which included the Washington Post and USA Today, carried no report whatsoever of the event.

There was some coverage on internet editions, but these are probably less read in the US and may indeed have been “international” rather than domestic online editions, accessed from Montrose.

Ditto with Bertie's 2007 Westminster address. While it was shown live on RTE, no UK channel broadcast it and it received very limited media coverage in UK, despite the blanket media coverage here and all the positive plaudits showered on Bertie for the speech content and his delivery of it.

There's a lesson for us in this: we shouldn't always believe our own hype.