DAWN RITCHDAWN RITCH
IN A particularly graceless parting shot, Police Commissioner Francis Forbes advised older officers to follow his lead into early retirement. Everybody knows he was the youngest police officer who ever made Commissioner, but I hadn't realised that Forbes had grown quite so old in the job.
He had not looked that old to me, although he talked and moved like a man with one foot in the grave. On the other hand his successor Lucius Thomas, who is 55, talks and moves like an 18 year old.
Figuratively speaking, Forbes is like a miserable corner youth who, inexplicably, got a degree and became articulate, but remained still only a miserable corner youth. Although he was only 53 or 54, not even experience made him wiser. It did not educate him either in any perceivable skill, least of all how not to be craven and grudgeful towards his successor.
FORBESIAN LOGIC
According to Forbesian logic Lucius Thomas, who is older than he, should have gone on early retirement. Presumably any police officer over 50 is a washed-up has-been and never-was. This makes Forbes a graceless nutcase, which certainly comes as no surprise to me.
The Forbesian vision for the constabulary force is, therefore, a bunch of 38 year olds dead asleep at the switches and wheels of highly expensive equipment, and without adult supervision of any kind. In other words much as he left it, I suppose.
But a real detective is inevitably an experienced detective, somebody who learnt it on the ground. To help things along the way, however, Forbes tarnishes all older officers, including the Commissioner-designate, in a personally convened press conference. Whining behaviour of that sort always comes back to haunt people and is usually the accompaniment to failure.
MISERABLE CORNER YOUTH
It is haunting Bruce Golding right now, who said that the Jamaica Labour Party was entirely about garrison politics, that he was 'new and different' and so he formed the NDM which itself was a failure.
As the former M.P. for Central St. Catherine, the only garrison seat then not contiguous with any other, it was impossible for him to be 'new and different'. Now he has returned to the chairmanship of the JLP and many say soon to become its leader, where it is doubtful he will enjoy the respect and loyalty of his own supporters.
Indeed, he could be described as yet another miserable corner youth who got a degree and became articulate, but spends his time speaking intelligently to the camera while his subordinates continually run amuck.
All the time Golding was a JLP Minister of Government in the 1980s his poll ratings didn't venture above five per cent. He won Central St. Catherine with a majority in the thousands, yet lost it to Babsy Grange when he led the NDM. That party didn't win a single seat.
He has no track record of any distinction whatsoever, save an unparalleled ability to talk reasonably about absolutely nothing.
Much like Francis Forbes in fact. But neither can keep a recognisable woebegone tone from occasionally creeping into their voices. Perhaps both were born with one foot in the grave, but nobody ever bothered to tell them.
Bruce Golding is only 56 or 57, yet he talks as though he has been overcome by the cares of the world, and is only trying to make a half-way decent job of it.
Bill Clinton is in his mid-fifties, but at least we know why he looks like a man in his early seventies, including a heart bypass. Forbes and Golding have no excuse to be over the hill. And, at least, Clinton was never arrogant. He lied with ease, but he was never arrogant. Hell, he even ran from Somalia.
Leaders should be known quantities, and stand for something. I am personally in favour of Pearnel Charles becoming JLP leader. He has a track record of success, and at least I know that he has never run from a fight in his life, and at 68 is unlikely to turn over a new leaf.
ETHICAL LAPSE
In the interests of a transparent election, Golding as a contender ought to have taken a leave of absence from his executive post of JLP chairman. Somebody not connected to either camp ought to be acting chairman.
This effectively eliminates Dr. Ken Baugh, Delroy Chuck, Abe Dabdoub, and Mike Henry. But to have partisans adjudicate and oversee the completion of the
delegates list, as well as run the election, is to move inexorably towards a foregone conclusion.
It is shocking that this was not immediately done. Mike Henry suggested it, but the JLP's Standing Committee seems to have thought the idea ludicrous.
Nevertheless this ethical and operational lapse underscores that there is no 'new and different' in the JLP, much less 'old and faithful'. Just enormous quantities of craven and grudgeful, helped along by handfuls of deceit.
It really seems to me, however, that they have overestimated themselves in thinking that they will be able to impose anybody they want on Edward Seaga's West Kingston seat.
CRAVEN CHOKE PUPPY
There was talk of a deal between Golding and Seaga, where Golding would return to his old garrison Central St. Catherine, and Babsy Grange would move to West Kingston.
But the Young Turks, including James Robertson, decided that Tom Tavares-Finson should apply for the West Kingston seat. That would give them Bruce in one, and Tom in the other.
But craven choke puppy. Now it looks like neither one of them will be getting a seat anytime soon.
Desmond McKenzie is a shoo-in for Tivoli, and Babsy is not going anywhere. If Bruce had either the wisdom or authority of his calendar years, he might have been able to control the Turks. Then he would have been one step closer to getting a seat himself.
In the meantime the PNP have done a poll on who should succeed P.J. Patterson as president. Portia Simpson-Miller comes out at 61 per cent, Dr. Peter Phillips is 21 per cent, and Dr. Omar Davies is three per cent or something equally risible.
Perhaps the JLP should do one themselves to see if Golding is as charming as he thinks, at any age.
