The Nassau Guardian’s editorial of the 3rd January 2018 was a subjective and emotional anti-PLP outburst that cannot withstand the rigours of balance, logic, reason and most importantly truth. It was redolent of sloppy reasoning and falsehoods.
The editor opines that when Bahamians voted the PLP out of office on 10th May 2017, they knew that the PLP posed an existential threat to The Bahamas. The writer used crime, sovereign credit downgrades and the economy as the reasons.
Existential means that the PLP threatened the life of the nation like for example global warming. There is no evidence of that save in the warped logic of the editorial. To accuse the party that led to the creation of this nation, a nation that the FNM did not want to exist is beyond insulting.
These are some irrefutable truths for the Nassau Guardian’s editor: crime doubled under governance of the FNM where the murder rate increased from 62 to 126 from 2007 to 2012, an average annual increase of twenty percent. Additionally, there were multiple sovereign credit rating downgrades, some of which were blamed on the direct actions of the FNM government. Unemployment doubled, the economy contracted and there were charges of corruption against Ministers of the then FNM government.
Using the logic of the editor, the FNM government was a far greater existential threat to The Bahamas given these dismal national key performance indicators. Notwithstanding this dismal government performance and sorry state of national affairs, the editorial board of the Nassau Guardian in their infinite journalistic wisdom, objectivity and balance, conveniently excused the FNM government from responsibility, accountability and culpability and summarily blamed the 2008 recession for the May 2012 electoral defeat.
Perhaps the editorial board wishes to explain their logic to an increasingly discerning and skeptical reading audience in the face of easily verifiable facts and figures that are both stubborn and permanent.
On the issue of corruption and unseemly conduct, we say this:
An FNM Senator was found guilty of criminal possession of ammunition in a court of law. An FNM minister was forced to resign his Senate seat when he was caught in a bribery and murder for hire plot. The sitting Prime Minister failed to declare his interest in a government contract multiple times. A sitting Minister was caught multiple times conspiring to defraud customs and a sitting FNM Member of Parliament was disbarred in the state of Florida for misappropriation of client’s funds.
Those are only a few examples.
ALL OF THESE MEN SIT IN THE SEAT OF POLITICAL POWER. THESE MISSTEPS ARE REAL YET THE NASSAU GUARDIAN DID NOT DESCRIBE THEM AS EXISTENTIAL.
We have protested Guardian and Freeport News editorials on three previous occasions for their blatant disregard for the truth, conflict of interest and logic. The responses were not printed in your papers but ignored. The maxim: never let the truth interfere with a good story is appropriate here.
We add: o what a tangled web you weave when first you practice to deceive.
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