EDITORIAL: The chance still missed to inspire

Credit must be given?to Mr Freundel?Stuart for breaking the silence. His taking the time to present himself and his views to the public will have been a dream come true for many, his casual and comfy appearance a welcome change; but he may still have missed the boat.
After all the touting, The Interview With The Prime Minister on CBCTV Tuesday night was far more an exercise in self-defence and self-dramatization than it was in revelation and inspiration.
Firstly, the integrity of The Interview was undermined by the absence of a team of credible, practising journalists putting the issues of the day to the Prime Minister. Mr Stuart, by poor advice, or by his own volition, avoided such professional interaction.
This sought to project, for the greater part, Mr Stuart’s own propaganda, conduced to by a melodramatic and accommodating host in Rosemary Alleyne.
The recorded interview served mostly to enable our leader to rehash what Barbadians already know about him, and to cut the throats, if he could, of his critics.
The positive opportunities for The Interview were essentially wasted. And therein lies the rub.
Mr Stuart concerns himself with the misguided notion of a perceived handful of “detractors”, majorly in the mainstream media, who would beat up on him unfairly and speak of him untruthfully.
The Prime Minister fails to grasp, bright as he is, that that very media is the conduit for expression of the very people he leads in a democratic society.
We look forward to more authentic engagements with the Press in the near future.
Mr Stuart’s equivocations on the beatification of Errol Barrow and David Thompson after the pillorying of them by their critics, and the likely beatifying of him after similar treatment represented a fleeting visit to fancy via scholasticism.
The truth is neither of the two as Prime Minister was ever criticized for not speaking to or addressing the people of Barbados when it mattered, and for a man who said he has studied the office of Prime Minister from the time he was a child, this should have been patently obvious.
What little new we learnt on Tuesday night was that the Prime Minister, out of the Shanique Myrie case, secretly toured the Grantley Adams International Airport and that CCTV cameras will be installed there; and that when Denis Lowe resumes work next month, Denis Kellman will surely not be shunted from the Cabinet.
But once again Mr Stuart has pandered to the party faithful and the converted; hardly a whisper of inspiration or trace of conviction for the floating voter.
Contrary to Mr Kellman’s utterance, a political leader is not a CEO; he or she is the people’s persona.