Actually, Brian Feeney's fundamental failure might be understanding anything, but I was feeling charitable when I wrote that title. The Irish News is generally the best of a bad bunch when it comes to local news papers, which makes the fact that they give regular space to an idiot like Feeney all the more puzzling. I guess it must be a marketing decision; there are enough people out there who enjoy nothing more than reading material that reinforces their own prejudices, even if it is rubbish.

Over at 3,000 Versts Chekov does a wonderful job of tearing apart Feeney's latest diatribe against unionists, which comes disguised as a rant about Human Rights (nice to see the Irish News finally making their content freely-available online by the way. Damn this new media stuff's a bit scary).

In addition to Chekov's critique, I thought I should add my own thoughts. Firstly to correct a schoolboy error. Feeney says

"[Unionists] use the words "UK" and "Britain" inter-changeably. When they remember that the north [sic] isn't part of Britain..."

Britain and the UK are interchangeable and it's not just unionists who use the terms accordingly. Feeney may be confusing Britain, a convenient short-hand for "the United Kingdom", with Great Britain, the island consisting of England, Scotland and Wales. I'd let the mistake slide if it wasn't for the fact the arrogant shite is trying to correct other people. The first rule of being a smart-arse is to know your facts.

Feeney goes on about unionist reluctance to devolve policing and justice powers "such a mentality indicates a fear of self-reliance, a unionist unwillingness to stand on their own two feet". Actually, it is the manifestation of a fear of letting the fox run the hen-house - to give convicted criminals the ultimate (or nearly ultimate) say in running the police. Sounds like common sense to me.

Follow up:

"It’s a bit like being in the swimming pool but too scared to let go of the bank, which more or less sums up the whole unionist attitude to power-sharing."

The way I see it, if we must use swimming-pool analogies (let's keep it simple for poor Bri, he seems a bit slow), it goes more like this. Our MLAs are charged with looking after the interests and well-being of the voters in a similar way that a parent is charged with looking after the interests and well-being of their child (albeit the child doesn't get to select its parents, much as some may wish they could). To my mind, allowing known terrorists to run the police is more akin to giving a known paedophile the job of running the swimming pool your children attend.

His conclusion sums it all up nicely. Only a complete and total moron, or someone wilfully misrepresenting the situation could conclude with something that is, at the one time, as horrendously idiotic and deliberately insulting as:

"Is that really the limit of their ambition, to be a dependant province of an imaginary state? Yes, of course it is."

Well done Brian. Clearly your intellect knows no bounds and we should do away with the assembly altogether and just let you run the place.