I thought the supreme court justice should have been on the stage, not in the audience; she clearly knew her facts better than anyone else in the room. And yes, the section where Bacik was asked “Well if the couples were equal in every other way, would you go for a straight of a gay couple?” was just absurd.

I have to say, though, that Bacik disappointed me; she fumbled the opportunities to deconstruct Quinn’s arguments. The boy’s been around; she should really have known his modus operandi and come armed. Certainly he’d done more research than her, even if it was skewed, and I’m sure I saw him quoting the same studies two years ago on Q&A. Biased chairperson or not, I didn’t think she was as well-prepared as she should have been.

I’ve heard about Our Brand is Crisis but never seen it. I must put it on the list.

There was a complete lack of reason in that program, probably the worst I’ve seen in a long time. There was a chief justice in the audience who balanced her arguments carefully and purposefully. The problem is that these balanced viewpoints are considered boring as they often balance a debate and make it difficult. She was right to question his approach from the “american studies” but this was not taken up by Pat in the slightest.

For example, Quinn was allowed to posit, in the words of Pat, “an impossible question”. Should male and female parents be preferred over a same sex couple in the case of adoption?

Ms. Bacik seemed thrown by the absurdity of the question and should have refused to answer but instead she dithered. When she couldn’t answer it was seen as some sort of weakness on her part but Pat loves black and white, even if it is nonsensical.

The most depressing part was the audience moaning and groaning at reason and clapping as ringmaster Pat delighted them with illogical questions.

On a separate point I noticed a certain Paul Allen, PR maniac, on newstalk today telling us all to be pragmatic, understanding and humbled at the efforts of our taoiseach. He had a lovely way of putting it, appealing to the pocket of the taxpayer and “people trying to get on with reality”. Reality is what we’re missing it seems.

It reminded me of the great documentary, “Our Brand is Crisis”, have you seen it? Well it’s about the political coaching of the bolivian right during a key election. The man in charge quotes that he just helped a party in Ireland win an election. He informs the staff that he told the party in question that saying that “crime had decreased” would never be believed. He told them to say “crime is down, but there is more to be done”. It may sound like tripe, and it is, but it seems to work with people here. Getting on with the job, however badly or irresponsibly, is more important than confronting reality.

Keep it up, it’s nice to have something to read that notices the same irrelevances.