Rev. Keith Russell Defends Rev. Frederick McAlpine MP
Big Mac Attack
The Editorials in our local dailies as of late have been shocking to say the least. Perhaps they have always been thus. Maybe I have not been paying attention. Who is writing these Editorials for the Freeport News and the Nassau Guardian anyway? Is it the Chairman of the FNM Party? That is how these Editorials read. The latest case in point is the Editorial in the Guardian Thursday February 28, 2019, under the caption “McAlpine: An error of selection that persists”.
It begins with an astounding opening sentence: “Hubert Ingraham would never have run Rev. Frederick McAlpine in a winnable seat”. Wow! Unquestionably, the writer must have intimate knowledge of Mr. Ingraham’s decision-making process. Predictably, after the opening shocker, the piece is all downhill from there, lapsing into a dozen or so paragraphs of FNM propaganda and facile attacks on the Honourable Frederick McAlpine’s decisions over the past almost two years.
However, the Editorial is absolutely right about one thing: McAlpine is a living nightmare for the PM, his administration and diehard FNMs.
In opposition to the skewed view offered in the Guardian, an alternative viewing of McAlpine’s actions suggests that they have been exceedingly good for our democracy, even if they have not been beneficial for the advancement of the agenda of the aforementioned players.
In an attempt to demean his character, the Honourable member from Pineridge is accused, in the Guardian, of being disgruntled because he didn’t receive a Cabinet post from the PM after the FNM’s tremendous victory. Unlike the Editorial writer, I have no knowledge of the good member’s motives and would not venture to comment on them; only to offer that if the Editorial pegged his motivations accurately, perhaps his discontent is legitimate. After parading McAlpine through the trenches, from stage to stage during nationwide rallies, for which he received many scars and bruises, Mr. Minnis gives portfolios to persons who were on the sidelines watching the fight. These recipients took no blows and received no scars. Maybe the good member from Pineridge feels used, undervalued, unappreciated. In any case, democracy still wins.
As for his actions, though, they have been nothing but courageous, justified and appropriate. They have been a model of the democratic process. In most cases when this administration gathers, McAlpine is usually one of only a few adults in the room.
In an effort to continue to defame, the Editorial invokes McAlpine’s vociferous objection to the people from storm ravaged Dominica coming to take refuge in the Bahamas. I, too, disagreed vehemently with McAlpine’s position on this matter, but he had every right to his opinion and to his reasons for holding it. That’s how democracy works. And I am offended by the Editorial’s convenient allusion to the Westminster system to reprimand McAlpine for breaking ranks, given our present hypocritical circumstances.
Incidentally, this was one of the only times I agreed with Mr. Minnis on anything. For one brief, shining moment I thought he had found his moral compass. But then Oban appeared. I was immediately pulled from my temporary stupor. Again, McAlpine was the courageous, moral adult in the room. He tried to warn his colleagues about their slipping popularity and integrity. Rather than listen, they began his slow, but certain banishment.
When the speaker spewed his vileness in the honourable house, again McAlpine attempted to climb the moral staircase. Again, he stood when the vote on the Vat Bill came to the House. And now with this latest debacle concerning Mr. Sands and Mr. Dames, he stands again. All of this bodes well for our threatened democracy.
For the writer of the Editorial, McAlpine may be an irritant and he may be such to this administration and to diehard FNM’s, the ones who have drunk the red Kool-Aid, resulting in their hysterical blindness; but for most of the woke nation, he is turning out to be a hero. Not because his motivations are spotless, or because he is a champion of all things wonderful. It is because his standing appears so colossal amidst a crew so morally appalling.
And if none of the arguments above convinces you of McAlpine’s worth, I refer you to a letter to the Editor in the Freeport News of Thursday February 28, 2019 written by one Mr. Kevin Evans, who claims to be a biblical scholar. It is an extremely well written, well researched, but enormously flawed piece, hailing Mr. Minnis as appointed by God for this hour. All I am saying is, why not add the Honourable Frederick McAlpine to that list of God appointees for such a time as this.
I write; you decide.