Labour Party TDs and hangers-on tried very hard to hide their delight this week after Bertie Ahern had made them the target of his ire, following the settlement of the third-level fees row, writes Mark Hennessy.
"If he is picking on us and on Pat Rabbitte, he is hurting and he is conceding that we are the real Opposition. It has done wonders for the morale of people down in the trenches," crowed one Labour TD.
However, Mr Ahern would be the first to know that he would heighten Labour's public profile by picking on it, and he is hardly inclined to be in the mood to do Pat Rabbitte any favours. So what is he up to?
Last Saturday, Mr Ahern met with the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, and the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, to fashion a compromise on the fees crisis. The controversy's resolution showed some of the political skills sadly lacking when the crisis had been in full flood. It was quick, effective and threw principles aside once deemed impractical.
Though bruised, as he showed on Sunday when he had to face the cameras alone, Mr Dempsey could claim to have got €41 million to send the country's poor inside the groves of academe.
A week on, it is still not clear whether Fianna Fáil put the hammer on the Tánaiste to find €12 million from her Enterprise, Trade and Employment budget, or whether she offered the money as a token of goodwill. If the latter, it was a masterstroke.
For the rest of his time in Education, Mr Dempsey will be haunted by questions about the €41 million, particularly when journalists and economists pore over the Book of Estimates in late autumn.
The odds are that it will have partially vanished, or that it will have eaten into another politically sensitive part of his budget, regardless of his oft-repeated guarantees this week.
Which brings us back to Mr Ahern. Given the speed of the resolution, the Opposition spent last Monday morning scratching their heads trying to figure out a way of keeping the controversy going.
They were not having much luck until the Taoiseach delivered his broadside at Labour. Though Labour insists it failed, Fianna Fáil argues otherwise, believing that it exploited Mr Rabbitte's evident attempt to take Labour to the centre ground.
Labour was forced into supporting free fees that benefit the sons and daughters of the super-rich, as much as they do the children of an industrial worker, Fianna Fáil insists.
Nonsense, says Labour. The reintroduction of fees would have been a minor irritant to the rich, but it would have inevitably shafted the middle-classes in time. Every tax does. Past experience supports them.
The Fianna Fáil strategy is to create doubt about Labour's "brand". There is no doubt that Mr Rabbitte is attempting to model his conduct on Tony Blair's battle to make British Labour electable.
Mr Rabbitte has a far easier job. Labour here has long since been electable and has long since become middle class, as anyone traipsing around Killarney's Great Southern Hotel during last month's conference could testify.
But Mr Rabbitte's acknowledgment in his conference address that the private sector could deliver more public services was carefully noted by many. In time, he will have to spell out hard choices.
For this to be credible, it will have to demand higher standards from all union workers employed in the public services - some of whom are free of the scrutiny that would get them sacked in the private sector.
For now, none within Labour are ready for such an internal battle. Some give the impression that they are not even aware that it will have to be fought. But it will. In time.
Now that the prospect of third-level fees has gone, it will be interesting to see how opinion swings. Late last year, when it was first mooted, 61 per cent said "No", and the figures were even higher in the middle class. Now the threat to their pockets is gone, people can afford to indulge their socialist principles and their sense of community. If they feel all misty-eyed for the kids from Darndale, then Bertie Ahern will have scored.
Meanwhile, Mr Ahern's strategy has other benefits. It puts the spotlight on Mr Rabbitte far earlier than he would have liked and it sends out an implicit message to the public that Fine Gael simply does not matter to the equation.
If the woes of Fine Gael - though the party has been getting slowly sharper - continue then there will be rural votes available for the picking, votes that Mr Ahern may be hoping Fianna Fáil can pick up.
Such votes, even as transfers and even in small numbers, are critical to Fianna Fáil since its grip on the transfers of its first-preference voters is weakening sharply as the years go by.
The reality is that Fine Gael matters all too much to the arithmetic of the next Dáil from Labour's point of view. If it implodes, Mr Rabbitte's chances of a coalition excluding Fianna Fáil are pretty close to minimal.
Labour has 21 TDs. More than a few are ready to quit. In 1992, with the "Spring Tide", it had 33 TDs. Getting near that will be one hell of a challenge. Getting beyond it would be a miracle.