From last week’s Economist:

In the EU’s corridors October 2009 is now quietly being touted as an ideal date for a second Irish referendum. Claims that a new Irish vote might be hard to win are brushed aside: Ireland must accept its responsibilities, and make every effort to ratify Lisbon, huff Euro-grandees (and leave the EU if it fails, murmur the hard-core federalists). Yet Ireland faces perhaps the deepest recession of all. Bullying its prime minister, Brian Cowen, into holding a new referendum could amount to leaving whisky and a loaded revolver in the study and expecting him to do the decent thing for Europe.

I’m sure that we can count on Brian Cowen to do the decent thing for both Ireland and Europe.

Considering that, in that metaphor, the decent thing would be to drink the whiskey and come out shooting…