Whither the sauce? Last week, Brian Cowen was asked in an interview how the drinking was. "Fine," he said, and that was enough to get the issue onto the airwaves and print. Among the myriad problems the Taoiseach faces at the moment is the one in which his lifestyle is the subject of gossip.

Cowen has never been one to hide his fondness for a jar. When he became Taoiseach, he said in response to a question that he would have to make changes in his lifestyle, but nothing major.

Now that we are in recession, and a growing body of opinion believes that the tiller is unmanned, relatively small issues loom large. The extent to which Cowen drinks is his own business, unless it impinges on his public duties. And there is no evidence that his lifestyle has had any impact on his job.

In any event, his approach to the matter is refreshing. In an age when many political leaders are something of a construct, Cowen doesn't feel the need to apply a veneer of PR to his whole persona.

The sauce constantly pops its beery head up in matters of national leadership. This is no surprise, since it is such an integral part of life, particularly here and on our neighbouring island. Usually, the matter is raised in terms of the lifestyle of an incumbent leader, but it can also be used to the leader's advantage by portraying himself as somebody who coulda been a contender for skid row, but managed to save himself, implying that he would now go on to save/better/
rejuvenate the nation, or his party.

One example of the latter was David Cameron, the leader of Britain's Conservative party. In a recent magazine interview, Cameron told how he nearly went off the rails as a rebellious teenager at Eton, the exclusive private school. He said he drank too much. He was caught smoking behind the bike sheds in the school yard (oh, you demented lunatic). And he did poorly at his exams.

"When I was 14, 15, 16, I was doing things that teenagers do… drinking too much, being caught having the odd fag, things like that.

"I didn't do particularly well in my O-levels, but I was fortunate enough that 16 was a turning point for me. I was, in some ways, heading in the wrong direction and I pulled myself up and headed in the right one."

Thus, younger voters in particular are told that Cameron isn't a dry old fart. He was once like you, a rebel without a cause, but then the cause of his country beckoned and he pulled himself together in the national interest. Now he is a dry old fart with a supposed interesting – and possibly invented – history.

George W Bush was another leader who had left a gin-soaked past behind him in order to make the world a better place. Dubya always maintained it was his discovery of God that saved him, and propelled him to sober up in order to save the universe. He used his boozing past to both promote his religion and portray himself as a good-ole-boy.

However, during his tenure in the White House, he always had the appearance of a former drunk who was on a white-knuckle ride, one bad day away from seeking recourse in the bottle.

Then, in January 2002, there was the 'pretzel' incident which raised a few eyebrows. Bush acquired a facial injury, which he attributed to falling off a couch after nearly choking on a pretzel. Some observers were of the opinion that he had fallen from the wagon rather than a couch, and had injured himself while blind drunk.

Other leaders had an all-too-real relationship with drink. Winston Churchill was reputed to have drunk up to a bottle of whiskey a day when he was saving the world for real from the Nazis. Who could blame him? He had a lot on his plate, sending soldiers out to kill and die.

The revelation that he had a fondness for the daily bottle also explains why he was photographed sitting down most of the time.

He wouldn't have got away with it today, as Charles Kennedy could have told him. Poor Kennedy resigned as the leader of the Liberal Democrats in 2006 following a raging controversy within the party about the extent of his drinking.

To be fair to Kennedy's colleagues, it does appear that the sauce did actually impact on his ability to function. At one stage prior to his political demise, he put his bleary-eyed appearance down to sleepless nights with his newborn child, a station that is enough to drive anybody to drink.

Back at home, Cowen's lifestyle issues will continue to hover around the periphery of his public image. He could use it to his advantage by combining the few pints with his love of song. Now that he doesn't appear to have the capacity to excite the public with stirring rhetoric, he could lubricate his vocal chords in the national interest.

A perfect fillip to the current mood of woe would be to have the Taoiseach leading the nation in a televised rendition of 'Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore' from some rural Co Offaly hostelry.

If the broadcast is a success, it could be brought on tour across the country on a right binge, sponsored by the beleaguered publicans.

That would certainly make people sit up and take notice that there are far worse things in life than a recession.

mclifford@tribune.ie