Pay a visit to Slugger O’Toole for the latest on the current political crisis in Northern Ireland. Short version: Details are still emerging, but it looks as though the IRA successfully infiltrated the Stormont administration (the Northern Ireland parliament) and, over a period of months, collected secret information about senior political, police and military figures. It looks as though they did this with the knowledge and help of Sinn Fein party members who work at Stormont as part of the Northern Ireland Assembly. (SF hold several ministerial positions in Northern Ireland’s government.) A senior SF administrator was charged over the weekend.

Reactions to the raid and arrests have been predictable. The Ulster Unionist Party have pulled out of the Executive and the institutions of the Good Friday agreement look set to collapse. Direct rule will probably be reimposed. SF are arguing that it’s all politically motivated victimization, and are accepting no blame at all. In a typical bit of whataboutery (an Irish concept that electoral politics in the U.S. could do with these days), they’re pointing to past leaks to Unionists from the British government and police force.

All in all, it seems the art of constitutional politics is just not attractive enough to SF to make it give up its other main hobby, viz, being the friendly front-end of a highly professional terrorist organization. Whoops—- looks like I’m lapsing into N.I. cynicism. Better stop now. As usual, the whole thing is just depressing. Slugger has more stomach for it than me. Maybe that’s why he’s still in Ireland and I’m in Arizona.