St. Patrick Didn't Quite Drive All the Snakes from Ireland

Mark Steyn on Gerry Adams:

Adams is usually billed as the "President of Sinn Fein," which in turn is usually billed as the "political wing" of the IRA. This artful form of words is supposed to suggest some kind of distinction between "President" Adams and the murkier fellows who do all the bombing and killing and knee-capping. In fact, as the Irish government recently revealed, "President" Adams is a member of the Provisional IRA's ruling "army council" -- i.e., the fellows who order all the bombing and killing and knee-capping.

So instead of one more chorus of "The Wearing of the Green," it's the wearing out of the welcome for Adams at the White House. In his place, President Bush will welcome the fiancee and five sisters of Robert McCartney. McCartney was a Belfast Catholic and a Sinn Fein supporter, but he made the mistake of getting into an argument with a Provisional IRA big shot in a pub in January. The other "Provos" present grabbed McCartney, beat him with iron sewer rods, slit him open from his neck to his navel, severed his jugular and jumped on his head, causing what was left of it to lose an eye. There were 70 witnesses in the bar but none of them saw a thing.

Depravity-wise, what exactly is the difference between McCartney's murder and the lynching of the four U.S. contractors in Fallujah? None -- except that the organization responsible for the former has enjoyed a decade of White House photo-ops.

Inside Politics has this (not a permalink):

Not this year
For the first time since Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is refusing to meet with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams on St. Patrick's Day.
Mr. Adams, head of the political party affiliated with the Irish Republican Army, came to the United States this past weekend to seek support from Irish-American activists amid outrage over recent IRA activities.
But although Mr. Kennedy has met with Mr. Adams every St. Patrick's Day since the Good Friday peace pact seven years ago, the Irish-American senator informed Mr. Adams there won't be a meeting this year, according to Kennedy spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner.
The spokeswoman cited "the IRA's ongoing criminal activity and contempt for the rule of law" as the reason for Mr. Kennedy's decision.
Sinn Fein is reeling from accusations that the IRA mounted the world's largest bank robbery, stealing $50 million from a Belfast bank on Dec. 20, and was responsible for killing a Catholic civilian outside a Belfast pub on Jan. 30.

If John Kerry, faux Irishman, had won the last election, is there any doubt he'd be feting Gerry Adams and any of the other Irish murderers he'd care to include in his bloody-fisted entourage?