Who Would Have Guessed

The deadline was set and both parties insisted it was firm.

No, it isn't. We won't accept the deadline.

In the build-up to the deadline on devolution of government in the north of Ireland, Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair are managing the circus that has been set up at St. Andrew's in Scotland. No golfing by most accounts, as the course is socked in by fog and utterly unplayable. The bigger game is being played off the links.

The talk about town is that Sinn Fein and the DUP are ready to finalize their accommodations and come up with a plan to enter into government together. After nearly two hundred years of direct rule by London, the Six Counties are going to have Home Rule.

No. Not without a guarantee.

Who would have ever guessed that the talks in Scotland are at an impasse today? Here we are in the final day of hashing out an agreement, and there is no movement. What shocking new development could have occurred to create such a logjam? Nothing new at all, and isn't that surprising? Sinn Fein will not recognize the police service until it is out of the control of Scotland Yard and MI-5. The DUP refuses to go into government with Sinn Fein until they accept the police service as it is. Oh, and should the Shinners buckle on that one, the DUP won't go into government with Sinn Fein until they turn over all their members who committed crimes and then turn over all their 'ill-gotten gains'.

Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness want the DUP to swear on their heretical Bible that the police service will be devolved and then they will recognize it. The DUP won't budge on their demand that Sinn Fein agrees to policing as it is and always has been. Oh, and never mind the collusion of the police and the loyalist thugs that resulted in murder and cover-up. To an ordinary person, that has all the makings of a roadblock, and it is the same thing that has been said for years. There is nothing new in Ian Paisley's position, no change in attitude, nothing to make a person believe that he's about to change his mind. And still, a spokesman for Tony Blair says that he detected a 'willingness' to come together.

No, no, no. No, no, no.

Wasn't the Belfast Agreement just the thing? Since 1998, the tenets that were ironed out through Bill Clinton's diplomacy have brought about....nothing new. Perhaps a more Theodore Roosevelt-ian approach is needed. Talk softly, but carry a big stick. Recalcitrant bodies often need a whack upside the head to propel them into forward motion.