First the BBC turns against you, then Ted Kennedy snubs you:

Kennedy spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner said: “Senator Kennedy has decided to decline to meet with Gerry Adams, given the IRA’s ongoing criminal activity and contempt for the rule of law.”

She said the events surrounding the death of Mr McCartney underscored the need for IRA violence and criminality to stop and for Sinn Fein to co-operate with police.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein’s most high profile supporter in Congress, New York Republican Senator Peter King, called on the IRA to disband.

Mr King said the IRA had made a series of poor decisions that had sparked anger in Irish-American circles and was now standing in the way of a power sharing deal between Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists.

He added that Americans were finding it “hard to see what the justification is for the continued existence of the IRA”.

Anyone would think Adams was a mafioso or something.