Elaine Loughlin: Schedule shenanigans help Taoiseach dodge small talk
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Corralled by a group of advisers who did their best to keep both the media and the general public away from their man, the Taoiseach managed to avoid much of the usual pressing of the flesh during his St Patrick’s trip.
In every administration, political advisers are appointed to steer their protégé on the right path. They provide counsel, act as gamekeepers, and at times even become a physical buffer between the politician and the press.
Just hours after Mr Varadkar left the White House last Friday, “shadowy staffers keep Biden on a short leash” was the topic rolling across the ticker tape during a Fox News segment.
On her eponymous show, presenter Laura Ingraham suggested Mr Biden’s handlers were going to extensive lengths to protect him from the press to keep him in power.
The Irish media covering the annual St Patrick’s Day trip to the US were asking similar questions after Mr Varadkar’s gamekeepers tried to stop journalists from attending events, left engagements completely off the official published schedule, and claimed other markings had been cancelled.
Mr Varadkar is not a man for small talk. An attempt to speak with two members of the famous Kennedy dynasty this week ended in the Taoiseach asking where the sofas in an anteroom of the JFK library came from.
The room filled with family photographs, including one of a young JFK sailing a yacht and another of Jackie on a horse, provided obvious conversational prompts, but the Taoiseach landed on upholstery — the one topic that Joe Kennedy and Jack Kennedy-Schlossberg couldn’t expand on.
Unlike his party predecessor Enda Kenny, who wasn’t happy to leave a room until he had every hand shaken, Mr Varadkar has always struggled with this side of the job, and he certainly won’t have brought home tales of the two-pint man he met in the US.
This is not necessarily a criticism of the current head of Government.
You don’t have to talk about the weather or find out the backstory of everyone you meet to lead a country, but it does help get you through the events that are part of the gig.
Throughout the trip, Mr Varadkar was whisked into function rooms and ushered straight to podiums to deliver the next speech on a circuit of business breakfasts, receptions, and gala dinners, before being swiftly removed — saving him from an inevitable donut of Irish Americans who are always eager to speak to a real-life Irish person at such events.
The Irish travelling media watched on as Mr Varadkar was parachuted in before being quickly plucked back out again.
However, there were a few engagements that the media was not made aware of.
The official itinerary sent out to journalists contained an obvious 48-hour blank space with no events scheduled between 2.15pm on Friday and 2pm on Sunday.
Repeated queries on this gleaned the same response — the Taoiseach had scheduled in private time.
It later emerged that, during this private time, Mr Varadkar hosted a reception for around 30 people on Friday night in Blair House across the road from the White House.
On Saturday morning, the media was told that they could attend a previously unmentioned White House brunch on St Patrick’s Day.
However, there was no such invite to cover a dinner event in the Gridiron Club — at which Varadkar played second fiddle to Mr Biden.
Earlier in the week, after kicking up a fuss, the press was eventually permitted to cover Mr Varadkar’s visit to the famous Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox.
There was yet another curious incident in Boston airport when reporters were told a Jet Blue route announcement had been cancelled, only to stumble across the Taoiseach posing for formal pictures with airline chiefs in another part of the terminal.
On Wednesday night, when Varadkar made a sharp exit from the Ireland Funds Gala, journalists at the event assumed it was a continuation of an apparent strategy to avoid small talk.
The following morning, one of his advisers privately admitted to being a little tired. It had emerged that the Taoiseach’s delegation had attended a reception, hosted by tech firm Stripe, after the official dinner.
We are told, repeatedly, that the annual trip to Washington is a privilege afforded to few world leaders, so we should be grateful for it. We are also told it is an opportunity to put Ireland on the world stage.
Mr Varadkar has always been a strong media performer and, unlike other politicians, finds media engagement a relatively manageable part of the job. That makes this week’s shenanigans all the more notable.
Why were his minders so keen to play hide and seek with the press on his trip to the US? If this was a week on the world stage, why keep him out of the spotlight for so much of it?