Pot Calling Kettle Black

I ALMOST called the Voice Editor Thursday to tell him my byline (name) didn’t appear with my article on ‘Walking the Marijuana Walk’ in Thursday’s Voice when I came across something more interesting.

Peter Josie invoked the memory of his ‘Big Brother’ George Odlum to take a crack at the Prime Minister for jokingly referring to Sandals Regional PR Manager Dominic Fedee, the latest UWP opposition candidate hopeful, as “a little boy”.

Josie was on the ball when he described Fedee as a David vis-à-vis a Goliath. But in his haste to pin-prick the PM for a comparative description (between Fedee and ex-Deputy Police Chief Hermangild Francis) that had more to do with height, size and weight, Josie ended up doing just what he was criticizing the PM for.

He ended up saying the PM’s criticism of the young opposition candidate “may be” because “he has not rid himself of the mud of Saltibus and RiviereDoree.”

That I would call a Lilliputian pin prick, considering that while Brother George may have coined a phrase like “Kenton Gone Mad”, Peter the Great (or St. Peter, if you prefer) and I are both dead sure Brother George would have used the simpler “Pot calling kettle black!” to describe Josie’s criticism of Dr Anthony’s measurable political ‘picong’. But, that was not all. Opposition

Leader Dr Gale Rigobert also jumped on Josie’s train, likewise taking Dr Anthony to task for the “little boy” crack. Like Josie, Dr Rigobert went all out to try to puncture the PM’s pin cushion. But the lady seems to have forgotten how much flack she herself got just last month for accusing Health Minister Alvina Reynolds of “hiding in the bush at Babonneau”.

Now, I know that politicians operating on fast-forward normally suffer from large doses of induced selective amnesia, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that the “wilful blindness” attributed to the Police top brass in the IMPACS Report may very well have been a spillover from an existing overdose in the local political arena.

How else to feel when the minister in charge of the police during Operation Restore Confidence talks like he never was? Or, when one “ex-wife of an ex-Cabinet Minister” is being hounded in one case involving an offshore school located here while two current wives of two ex-Cabinet Ministers also feature prominently in the local business of two other offshore schools also operating here.

I can well understand why others will use such examples to dissuade young persons from entering the political field. But I’m glad that Dominic Fedee didn’t allow himself to be dissuaded from taking the plunge. Not that he’s any young man (my friend has been around a while!). But while he is certainly “a big man” in both age and position, even he will not describe himself as “a big boy”.

All who are taking Dr Anthony to task for the “little boy” statement show just how small their intellect can be if all they remember from Dr Anthony’s speech in Anse la Raye last weekend is those two words. But then, what does it say of those of my colleagues in the press who also only heard that statement as best of all the PM said to report and dwell on?

For me, though, the icing on this particularly tasty cake came in an official press statement this week from the UWP — also roundly attacking the PM for the “little boy” statement – before concluding with the following promise: “The UWP will be unwavering in its focus on the most important issues affecting Saint Lucia…”

I rest my case!