Was John F. Kennedy more Harvard than Irish? -- new book raises the issue again

He was elected president 50 years ago this week yet he remains as fresh in our lives and minds as if he stepped down just a few years ago.

John F.Kennedy is the subject of a new book about his visits to Ireland, including, interestingly, his trip to research his Irish roots in the 1940s.

The book entitled 'JFK in Ireland" is written by Ireland's top television host and journalist Ryan Tubridy whose family has long connections to the Kennedy clan.

Since the book was published some in Ireland have tried to rubbish the premise that Kennedy was really interested in his Irish roots.

That is an old argument and one that has been flatly contradicted by the facts, something I quickly discovered when I talked to his siblings, brother Teddy and sister jean.

I have not read Tubridy's book yet, which I believe is a spirited case for the notion that John Kennedy did for Ireland what Barack Obama did for Africa in terms of world recognition.

There is no doubt about that. I was ten when he came to Ireland. It was like the advent of technicolor, when all that was black and white and dreary was suddenly transformed.

The Kennedy not interested in his Irish roots argument has also been floated over here for many years.

This is despite one key fact that it was Kennedy himself who insisted on the Irish leg of his trip in 1963, in order to pay homage to his ancestral home.

This is after all the man who spoke the words "All of us of Irish descent are bound together by the ties that come from a common experience, experience which may exist only in memories and in legend, but which is real enough to those who possess it."

And he possessed it.

Still, there are those here who have always claimed that Kennedy was more Brahmin than Irish, more Harvard than Celt, but the fact of those three trips to Ireland in his short life certainly belie that theory.

Indeed, Teddy Kennedy was always very fond of recalling the many times that John summoned him to his compound on Hyannis Port when he was president and replayed the tapes of his Irish visit to him.

Teddy also recounted how Jack said he had been almost insulted by the advice of poet Robert Frost who told him at his inauguration to be 'more Irish than Harvard'

Teddy also talked at length about how Jack had been inspired by Eamon De Valera, man who went from revolutionary to Prime Minister and president and how Jack viewed him as a real-live Washington-type figure.

Jean Kennedy too, has always remarked on how the trip to Ireland had stayed foremost in Jack's mind for the rest of his brief life.

But perhaps the greatest evidence is that after his tragic assassination, it was De Valera who Jackie Onassis turned to among all the guests at his funeral , knowing how much the Irish trip and his relationship with Kennedy had meant to the slain president.

It was also the Irish Army which formed the honor guard in Washington.

His wife and closest family never had any doubt that In his heart Jack Kennedy was a paid-up member of the tribe

Smear effort on Peter King over IRA links will fail

Howard Kudler who is opposing Congressman Peter King, on Long Island, has launched an astonishing attack on King calling him a terrorist collaborator because of his links with Sinn Féin.

Kudler has about as much chance as the local dogcatcher has of taking King’s seat and this last second broadside is a pathetic attempt to blacken King.

It is a classic low blow, expressed without any knowledge whatever of King’s significant role in bringing Sinn Féin to the negotiating table, and an attempt to smear him with the terrorist label.

Let me be clear on this, Peter King for well over two decades was the only significant American political figure to deal with Sinn Féin and to understand the complexity of the situation in Northern Ireland.

King played an absolutely huge role in getting the Clinton White House involved in the Irish peace negotiations and he never shirked the hard task of making Sinn Féin completely aware of what America needed from them.

Far from encouraging terrorism King helped end Europe's longest war of the twentieth century and can stand up and be very proud of his achievement.

As for Howard Kudler he can climb back under what ever rock he appeared from when he is soundly whipped in November.

This blatant smear attempt, clearly an effort to win the Jewish vote, will backfire in spectacular fashion. Any Irish American in Long Island district three should vote with their feet November 2 and give King a resounding vote of confidence.

Bill Gates,Warren Buffett didn't go far enough in giving money away says philanthropist Chuck Feeney

Irish American billionaire philanthropist Chuck Feeney has stated that Warren Buffett and Bill Gates did no go far enough in their pledge to give half their wealth to charity.

"I support it, but it doesn't go far enough," Feeney told Global Post reporter Conor O’Clery in Dublin during a recent visit to Ireland. O'Clery also wrote the best-selling biography of Feeney.

Feeney has given close to $2 billion dollars to Irish universities and foundations. He also played a leading role in the Irish peace process, underwriting Sinn Fein’s Washington office until they were able to raise their own funds in America.

The founder of Duty Free Shops he has also given billions to universities and foundations worldwide.

All in all he will have given away $7 billion by 2016 when he expects all his money will have been allocated to charity. He instituted the 'Giving while Living' project which entails wealthy donors giving all their funding while alive

He takes issue with the Gates/Buffett pledge saying it does not go far enough “Giving While Living makes it clear, The Giving Pledge doesn’t,” he said.

“In May 2009 I attended the first gathering initiated by the Gateses and Buffet to elicit discussion among a small group of philanthropists about how to encourage greater giving among those with huge wealth,” he said , referring to a dinner in New York attended by a dozen billionaires.

“I was asked to participate in The Giving Pledge in conjunction with its public roll-out," Feeney told Global Post. "After thinking it over, I declined. This is primarily because, having taken this step 25 years ago, I don’t believe it is appropriate for me to join formally. Nevertheless I support the initiative, with which some 35 wealthy individuals and couples are now associated, and I remain open-minded as to how I might contribute to its further development and the ensuing process.”


Feeney's “Giving while Living “ philosophy inspired Bill Gates among others.

Gates told Charlie Rose on PBS that he was inspired by Feeney’s “phenomenal story.”

Feeney, however, is said to fear that the Giving pledges may run foul of surviving family members and believes little may be happening despite the pledges.

Feeney believes that giving his $7 billion fortune away was in“a sensible means for directing to good purpose, in a timely manner, a large and increasing wealth that well exceeded my, and my family’s, lifetime needs, and which I believe would have become problematic.”

Giving it all away Feeney said has been a “ rich source of joy and satisfaction for me and for my family as well,” he said. Feeney has four daughters and a son.

His message to other billionaires now is, “If you try it, you might like it!”

Gerry Adams not John Hume deserved Ireland's greatest ever award

John Hume was voted Ireland's greatest person ever by hundreds of thousands of voters in an Irish television program on Friday night after a five week contest.

I believe that the award went to the wrong person. No, not Michael Collins or James Connolly or Mary Robinson or Bono who were also in the frame, but someone who was not considered

Gerry Adams did more to bring peace to Ireland than John Hume did in my opinion.

He had a far tougher role to play and while John did incredible work, he did not literally put his life on the line time and again as Adams did at critical times.

Adams, of course, did not make the final five, a man so controversial as to be a former IRA leader would not be considered by the good people of Ireland

(Except of course Michael Collins was in the final five as was revolutionary James Connolly who also embraced violence --but that was back then when violence was different you see)

Don't get me wrong, John Hume is a remarkable individual who richly deserved his Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the Northern Irish process.

But the reality is that John's incredible work on that process was going nowhere until Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness created the opening with the IRA.

Of the two , Adams and Hume, Adams had by far the tougher task, convincing the IRA that they must call a halt to their activities and fall short of their stated goal of a United Ireland.

It was the kind of position that got Michael Collins killed and it almost got Adams killed as well.

I am proud to say that I know both Adams and Hume reasonably well and can richly applaud the incredible accomplishments that they both helped bring to fruition along with Bill Clinton, George Mitchell Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair to name a few.

But the first and most vital step in all of this great story was ending the IRA campaign, without which none of the rest would have made even a whiff of sense.

It was Gerry Adams who achieved that previously impossible task.

If the Irish peace process was the yardstick to produce Ireland's greatest ever then Adams deserved the accolade for doing the most.

Juan Williams fired for telling the truth by perfect NPR

You gotta feel sorry for Juan Williams.

He gets fired from politically correct NPR for admitting a basic truth,

When he gets on airplanes and sees people dressed in Muslim garb he gets nervous.

If he said he didn't I'd know he was lying.

The human condition is such that we measure fight or flight risks all the time.

It is how we evolved as any Darwinian will tell you.

Seeing Muslims in garb on planes connects us viscerally back to 9/11 and what happened.

It is unfair and we are able to overcome it by applying rational thought to it.

But does that mean that instinctively we don't feel a momentary tension and a flashback to 9/11 when a Muslim in full garb boards a plane?

Of course not but NPR wants us to believe their perfect species of human beings would never allow such an errant thought through their perfect brains.

Bullshit.

I was Irish in London in the 1970s and I remember the stares when I spoke after an IRA bomb atrocity.

Honestly I could not blame people for being a little concerned. Crazy killers were blowing up men, women and children in pubs in Birmingham and Guildford.

It was a very human reaction.

As was that of Juan Williams and everyone else I suspect.

Except the pluperfect people at NPR.

'Boardwalk Empire' aces its St.Patrick's Day episode - HBO hit gets its Irish up

"Boardwalk Empire" the HBO show about Atlantic City and prohibition in the 1920s surpassed itself on the Sunday night episode which had a complete Irish theme.

"Only for Nights in Ballygran" is a title taken from the ballad 'Carrickfergus" which was sung quite beautifully throughout the episode.

As to how HBO created the Irish banquet scene,go here.

http://www.hbo.com/#/boardwalk-empire/episodes/01/05-nights-in-ballygran/video/ep-5-dantes-hall-celtic-dinner-laurels.html/eNrjcmbOYM5nLtQsy0xJzXfMS8ypLMlMds7PK0mtKFHPz0mBCQUkpqf6JeamcjIyskknlpbkF+QkVtqWFJWmsjGyMQIAWCcXOA==

The episode was set in Atlantic City on the eve of Saint Patrick's Day 1920 as the forces for and against prohibition arrayed against each other.

As a snapshot in time of Saint Patrick's Day 1920, the first year prohibition was introduced, it was a fascinating look back.

The authenticity of this series lies in its almost perfect recall of a time and a place long gone, a place imagined but never seen, yet somehow a place and a time brought unerringly back to life with incredible attention to detail.

Such is/was St.Patrick's Day 1920 with prohibition in effect and city fathers trying desperately to get the booze distributed for the countless St.Patrick's Day parties that were held along the boardwalk and elsewhere.

On this eve of Saint Patrick's Day in 1920 city treasurer Enoch "Nucky" Johnston, based on a real character, is the lord of all he surveyed in Atlantic city.

In the episode he was was throwing his annual Irish party, arranged by the Ancient Order of Celts-- read Ancient Order of Hibernians. With an election coming up Nucky needed the Irish clout to deliver


The party scene with Irish leaders arrayed at a banquet table, listening to a tenor sing 'Carrickfergus" and later given gifts by dwarves dressed as 'leprechauns' was a classic.

Earlier in the episode Nuckey's haggling with the chief dwarf over what to pay the 'leprechauns' was a wonderful scene.

A speech by Nucky's brother ELi, involving the irish Rising and the need for American support for Irish independence almost sparked a riot as the Irish-born and irishAmericans argued over who was doing the most for Irish independence.

Somethings never change.

Later the prohibition cops bust up the party and Nucky falls hard for a Kerry woman Margaret Schroder, her married name, played by Scottish actress Kelly MacDonald.

The last scene shows them kissing. Does Nucky know it is the Kerry woman who betrayed his secret booze factory and her fellow Irishman Alderman Neary who has been arrested for the booze factory ?

I guess we'll find out next week.

We'll all be tuning in next week to a show that is gradually coming to rival "The Sopranos"

Absurd as Michelle Obama rated ahead of Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin as most powerful woman

Forbes Magazine has rated Michelle Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin as the most powerful woman in the world.

Big mistake.

Michelle is named as No.1. Hillary is rated as No. 5, Sarah Palin at No.16

Michelle Obama is an extraordinary woman but would have little impact were she not the wife of the president of the United States.

There is also the reality that while the First Lady can inspire and encourage she cannot actually impact policy in any direct manner

Hillary Clinton,of course, knows that very well and while she was initially in her husband's shadows she has since emerged as a leader in her own right first as a U.S. senator then a presidential candidate and then as Secretary of State.

She is by far the most accomplished woman of her generation.To rate her behind not only Michelle Obama, but Oprah Winfrey too is ludicrous

It is hard to argue, as Forbes do, that a First Lady with no executive power is as powerful as the U.S. Secretary of State who has intervened in some of the world's major trouble spots and has played an increasingly key role in the foreign policy agenda of Barack Obama.

It is also hard to argue that Michelle is more powerful than Sarah Palin who at one point was potentially within a heartbeat of the presidency.

Prior to that she was a popular governor of Alaska, one of the few women to run a statehouse.

Since her presidential run she has become a political phenomenon influencing millions of Americans through her speeches, tweets and television interviews.

Yet she is rated not only behind Michelle Obama but also Lady Gaga,Beyonce and Ellen De Generes

But before some of you say it some liberal agenda, this is Forbes magazine, bastion of conservative politics.

So their choices are bound to be controversial across the board. No question in my mind when it comes to power, Hillary Clinton should be rated first with Palin second.

Irish Catholics deserting Obama -- Reagan Democrats will decide November election

Once again at election time it is the old Ronald Reagan coalition of working class Irish and other Catholic groups in the American Midwest region who will decide the election.

The Reagan Democrats came home to the Democratic Party in the Obama presidential election year, but this year,led by the Irish, it appears they are once again drifting back to the Republican slate.

Polls in the key states show the ethnic vote shifting drastically to Republican candidates.

It is a indictment of President Obama and his vice president Joe Biden who typifies the Reagan Democrat appeal, that they have lost touch to a large extent with this key voting block.

They have done an incredibly poor job of explaining the health care reform, the bank bailout and the need to spend billion on a stimulus package to a group that arguably stood to benefit most from such government largesse.

They have failed to point out that if tax cuts bring jobs then the Bush presidency would have been a runaway success, or that cutting earmarks to regions means that region actually loses jobs.

They have also failed to explain how the Republican plan espoused by Bush and even some candidates today to privatize social security would have left tens of millions of older Americans in dire circumstances after the market crash.

Instead they have let the Tea Party and the Republican opposition define the election. It is a spectacular failure. It was bad banks and brazen greed that landed America in this mess, it was no government oversight that facilitated it.

Yet reading the polls that it was all just the government’s fault.

Somehow Obama has not been able to get the message out, especially where it counts most with blue collar white ethnic Americans who are suffering the most in this downturn.

Republicans are masters at summing up issues on memorable sentences while Democrats take forever to try and explain.

There is every indication that Democratic candidates on the East Coast and West Coast will survive most of the tough races. Barbara Boxer in California, Party Murray in Washington both have narrow leads in the senate races and appear likely to prevail while on the East Coast republicans best chance went up in smoke in Delaware when they choose Christine O’Donnell to run.

Meanwhile the south will be reliably red after this election.

So the battle comes down to Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The New York Times has profiled a number of congressional races where Irish candidates, with names like Toomey, FitzPatrick, Murphy, and Donnelly are competing fiercely to swing the election into their political camp.

How those races will go will define the fate of the house and perhaps the senate. For Joe Biden in particular, it must be galling to contemplate that the control of the House and possibly the senate will slip away because of a failure to hold his own Catholic base

Notre Dame's Irish tribe returns

Notre Dame, Indiana - The noise of battle rolled across this great stadium from about 3:30 onwards last Saturday.

The game against Pittsburgh was a nail biter down to the very end, but the Fighting Irish pulled through when it counted with a major defensive effort on the last Pittsburgh play of the game.

It is still a shock for an Irish-born person to take in the immensity of the Notre Dame experience.

Some 80,000 or so green clad supporters, many waving Irish Tricolors, presented a vision of the Irish experience in America that is often baffling to Irish-born people.

We should not be surprised, however, that different versions of being Irish have grown up all around the world.

One in two Irish people born on the island found a way off it since 1845. They spread the Irish penumbra worldwide, leaving a footprint on every continent and country.

The Notre Dame footprint began with Irish brothers and priests accompanying Father Edward Sorin from France on his foray into the Indiana wilderness to build a Catholic school.

On November 26, 1842, Sorin began the foundation of Notre Dame at the age of 28, in the teeth of a harsh winter and in the face of dire hardship and travail.

Soon the institution became an Irish Catholic redoubt, famous by the early 20th century for standing up against anti-Catholic bigotry.

In one of the most famous episodes, the Irish routed the Ku Klux Klan which came looking for a fight on the campus. Many trace the term Fighting Irish to that day.

Eaton de Valera passed through on his way to fighting for American recognition of the Irish republic.

In more recent times Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Charles Haughey and Irish President Mary Mcaleese have all come to the famous campus to re-energize the Irish links.

Ironically, the two most famous talisman of the school were not Irish Catholic. Legendary coach Knute Rockne was a Protestant, as was his greatest player George Gipp, whose mother was an Irish Protestant from Belfast who bitterly opposed her son going to the Catholic school.

Over the years the direct Irish connection to the school faded, and it seemed to have passed forever until the remarkable work of one man, Donald R. Keough, then president of Coca-Cola, single-handedly re-established the link in 1993.

He founded the Keough Institute for Irish Studies and persuaded two eminent scholars, Seamus Deane, a legendary Irish writer and academic, and Professor Christopher Fox, from the Notre Dame Department of English, to form the nucleus of the new venture.

Keough was later joined by a similar visionary, Irish-based businessman Martin Naughton. The Keough Naughton Institute has become the trailblazer for Irish studies not just in North America but worldwide.

I am proud to be a board member and to witness, every year, the incredible interest and commitment to Irish studies shown by the many Irish scholars now resident in Notre Dame and back at the Dublin campus in Stephen’s Green.

It is now a place where the Irish language, literature, Irish American history and contemporary issues between the two great traditions are all explored. The links in the sundered chain have been restored, and the Irish and Notre Dame are no longer ships in the night.

On September 1, 2012, the next chapter in the new relationship will be forged when Notre Dame visit Ireland to play Navy in their season opener at the new Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

The green clad Irish Americans all over Dublin and many other parts of Ireland will, no doubt, draw lots of stares and bemused comment.

But the locals should not worry. It is merely the wandering tribe returning home like Leopold Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses, back to claim their once native heath again.

When ex-governor Jerry Brown saved the Irish peace process

Jerry Brown can take some credit for getting Bill Clinton involved in the Irish issue, the former president's most successful foreign policy initiative.

As he runs for governor of California Brown can reflect on the fact that,on Ireland at least, he has done some good, even if by accident.

In April 1992 Brown was running against Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Irish Americans anxious for a new candidate to push for U.S. involvement in Northern Ireland had zeroed in on Brown and his opponent, the Arkansas governor.

By the time of the New York primary Brown had proven much tougher than expected. He had just won the Connecticut primary and was heading into New York under a full head of steam

Brown has Irish roots, his great-grandfather came from Thurles County Tipperary. He was an ex-seminarian, who was set to be a Jesuit at one point. He was also getting favorable reviews from Irish American groups around the country.

The Irish American lobby had arranged a forum organized by New York Assemblyman John Dearie at the Sheraton Hotel in midtown.

Clinton's people however, would not agree to attend unless they were sure that Brown would too.

Irish activist and top Democratic operative John Connorton confronted Brown outside a fundraiser on West 72nd Street.

Brown knew Connorton and stopped to talk. Their conversation was later carried in Conor O'Clery's book "The Greening of the White House"

Connorton told him he had to attend the Irish Forum the following night.

"There'll be a lot of Catholics there, right" asked Brown.

"Right."

"You think I should do it?"

"I think you should do it."

"OK"

When told Brown was attending Clinton did too.

It was there that Clinton answered the fateful question whether he would give a visa to Gerry Adams of the time.

"I would support a visa for Gerry Adams" he told Martin Galvin of the IRA leaning news paper the 'Irish people'

On the night Clinton arrived on time but Brown was ridiculously late finally reaching La Guardia at 11.p.m

At the time Brown had French guru Jacques Barzaghi by his side who didn't want Brown to attend.'

"Zherri why are we doing zis" he pleaded according to the O'Clery book

Connorton who was in the car with them said they needed to get going.

The driver got lost in Queens but they eventually arrived at midnight, Brown agreed with what Clinton had said and said he believed one day an American president would go to Northern Ireland.

In that, at least, he was proven right.

Vicki Kennedy now likely to run for Scott Brown senate seat

Will Vicki Kennedy run for her late husband's seat after all now that she has moved back to Massachusetts?

My guess is she will. Kennedy family sources confirm this.

The Boston Herald revealed last week that Kennedy is moving into a penthouse overlooking Commonwealth Avenue after selling her Washington D.C. home.

Scott Brown is up for re-election in 2012 and Vicki has still not got over the fact that Teddy’s seat went to a Republican.

If she enters the race she would immediately eclipse all other candidates and would be a very strong contender against Brown who ha lost some of the sheen that accompanied his upset victory.

She would also have no problem raising money, tapping into her late husband’s amazing network which is still intact. That network did not come out for Martha Coakley but they would come out for Vicki.

As a New Orleans native it might have been just as easy for her to move back to the Big Easy.

But her move to Boston clearly sends a signal that there may well be a political future ahead .

Vicki will be guiding construction of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute.But it is interesting that she will be the keynote speaker for the Action for Boston Community Development gala dinner on Oct. 29 - a key event for would be office holders.

Watch this space.

Irish leaving like they left before -- sad exodus signals end of Celtic Tiger

Dublin: Up to 6,000 Irish lined up in mixed weather conditions this weekend to seek out jobs abroad.

The long lines outside the Royal Dublin Society building in Ballsbridge for a jobs abroad fair reminded me somewhat of the Great Depression and brought home the human impact of the Irish financial crisis.

Every media outlet in Ireland drones on and on about the banking crisis but you never get to see the trickle down effects until you stand with the people lining up to leave Ireland once again.

It is estimated up to 200,000 could leave during this current recession.

The age average at the fair skewed surprisingly older. I would have expected young men and women but there were many in their thirties and forties.

They were underwater financially because their only investment, their house, was now worth less than the mortgage they were paying on it.

For them the reality was incredibly harsh. Many were taking young children with them, starting a new life but never wanting to abandon the old.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the $65 billion the Irish government will sink into saving their banking system would have done for the Irish like those leaving, if it had been spent on them and infrastructure and creating jobs.

I often wonder the same when I look at the cost of the Iraq war and the Afghanistan theater.

What would the U.S look like today if we weren’t spending just billions on an increasingly futile exercise?

The jobs at the Irish fair on offer were mostly in Canada and Australia, two countries that avoided the excesses of the downturn by having basic banking safeguards in place.

How much better would our world be if the US, and Ireland and the other reckless splurgers had used such restraint themselves?

The fair was a sad mirror image of an event my newspaper Irish Voice co-hosted in Manhattan about six years ago.

Back then, in conjunction with the Irish jobs agency FAS, we hosted an Irish jobs fair for Americans who were anxious to work in Ireland.

It was a time when the good times were still rolling, when property values were in the stratosphere and all seemed well with the Celtic Tiger.

Jobs were plentiful in Ireland and even the influx of European workers to Ireland were not enough to keep the labor rolls filled.

The Americans came in their thousands to the job fair, ready willing and anxious to work in Ireland, to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

It was an extraordinary feeling, seeing history placed on its head and the reverse of what had happened for generations suddenly come through.

It all came crashing down of course and the grim tide of the new economic reality came washing over Ireland again.

It will be a cold day in hell I think when another Irish jobs fair is held in America.

More’s the pity though. It was an amazing turnabout while it lasted.

Rick Sanchez CNN firing due to his own stupidity, not a Jewish conspiracy

CNN anchor Rick Sanchez could not have expected that his book 'Conventional Idiocy' could serve as a description of himself after he lost his job because of anti-Semitic remarks on a radio show.

Rick, a Cuban Hispanic with an annoying bombastic style, said that Jews run CNN and many news media outlets and considers this somehow threatening to him.

He clearly freaked because Jon Stewart has been poking fun at him -- not because he is Hispanic but because his show, is quite frankly, hard to take, as he is clearly filled with his own self-importance.

The Jewish media control comment is a common one. It is one you will hear many times in my profession, that Jews control the media therefore the world.

Funny I haven't seen a Jewish president lately or Prime Minister of a major country either..

It so happens most of the doctors I have seen in recent years have been Jewish too -- and I'm not going to chalk that up to a conspiracy, rather to the fact that they seem pretty smart people.

We need to get comfortable with the true reality of stereotypes. They are stereotypes because there is some truth in the depiction.

I mean most bar owners are Irish so are many of America's greatest writers, Eugene O'Neill, William Kennedy etc. In the advertising and sales business I also notice a lot of Irish names.

It is because we have the gift of the gab and expression, it is in our DNA.

Should we be horrified by noticing that?

Of course not.

There are few Jewish basketballers players, lots of African Americans ones, there are lots of Hispanic baseball players, not so many Irish any more. Italian Americans appear to be very good at soccer

Ergo, I can state that African Americans are disproportionately good at baskeball, Hispanic Americans at baseball and Italians good at soccer.

Any my point is? Let a million stereotypes bloom because much of it is what makes America great, the competing talents that different tribes have.

Barack Obama pretty much blew up the all African Americans are dumb stereotype all by himself.

It happened to the Irish too, The Irish were once depicted as apes by cartoonist Thomas Nast.

Then John F.Kennedy became president.

Sanchez mentioned Stephen Colbert in his rant, the same Colbert who joked about his Irish great- grandfather a few weeks back when testifying on immigration.

The truth is his great-grandfather was fleeing persecution and hunger when he came to America.

Jews fled the Nazis, Blacks came in slave ships.

Together we have created, not a perfect country, but one that is certainly the envy of the world.

This is a country that does not tolerate a Rick Sanchez, blaming his downfall on Jewish prejudice, when it is clearly about him and his presenting style, not his race.

He, of course, will go to his grave denouncing the Semitic conspiracy that brought him low.

But he needs to look in the mirror at the very embodiment of the arrogant 'conventional idiot" who brought him down.

Himself.

Bill Clinton feels the pain of the Irish on a grim news day for them

Dublin: If there was ever a right time for former president Bill Clinton to be in Ireland it was yesterday.

The man who came to office because he could "feel the pain" of ordinary Americans arrived on a day that the final bill became due for Ireland's Celtic Tiger drunken binge.

It came to $65 billion and Irish taxpayers were suddenly looking at decades of repayments that made the good times seem like an every more cruel mirage.

The Irish are like the family that just realized all the family heirlooms have to be pawned to make ends meet because a corrupt banker just stole all their savings.

But in two appearances in Dublin yesterday Bill Clinton set about steeling the Irish to the harsh reality they have now inherited.

At the opening of the William J.Clinton Center for American Studies on the campus of University College Dublin the former president reminded the student audience, that they were very fortunate.

From speaking to them beforehand I knew many were looking at the emigrant plane as an ever more viable option and feeling sorry for themselves,

No, they were not unfortunate, they were among the luckiest people alive Clinton told them. Their government worked, the lights came on every night, the toilets flushed, the infrastructure held together, they lived in homes they did not have to build themselves

Contrast that with much of the world where $2 a day is an average income and nothing works he said . Contrast that with grossly corrupt countries where power and privilege is paid for not earned.

All around me I could feel the students pick up and pay attention. This was a very different , effervescent message to the gloom and doom that passes for national dialogue in Ireland these days.

Then he talked about the worldwide legacy of Ireland, noting with great pride that since the foundation of the United Nations Irish peacekeepers and aid workers have been involved in every single aid emergency, from the Congo in the 1950s, Biafra in the 1960s to Haiti in 2010.

He also mentioned the extraordinary impact of the Northern Irish peace process on the image of the country worldwide and the example it gave in many other conflict resolution situations worldwide.

It was Clinton at his best, as the cheerleader in chief and enabler in residence, to help young Irish keep their eyes on a prize, not on the deep gloom that surrounds them like a fog.

He gave the same message at O'Reilly Hall in UCD that night to a room full of businessmen and women at an event hosted by Business and Finance Magazine. Ireland would be "just fine."

'You will work through this, you will get through this." he told the audience of leading business people. He reached into Greek mythology to make his point that the negative experience would make Irish people ultimately feel better about themselves.

At times he sounded like a psychiatrist counseling a suicidal client saying that what would not kill them would make them stronger.

Then he turned to the glory of the heavens, the new planet discovered just this week in a galaxy far away which could probably bear human life. He spoke of the Hadron collider where atoms smash into each other and scientists have discovered that there are more positive than negative charges in atoms.

It was Clinton at his eclectic best, ranging over a vast array of subjects, showing an encyclopedic knowledge of them all an delivering a positive message.

And he convinced his audience to think afresh too. Ireland's leading businessman Denis O'Brien stated that yesterday was ground zero for Ireland, the day the worst news had come out and it was time to start to rebuild.

President Clinton has shown the way it could be done he said. His speech was an inspiration and a challenge. It was time for the American 'can do' attitude to take over.

So Clinton did light a kindly light amid the encircling gloom in Ireland yesterday.

It was indeed a fortunate wind that took him to the land of his forebears yesterday. It was good to be an Irish American in Ireland yesterday.