THE VINDICATION OF ROBERT LEWIS: THE MINSTER FLOGGS BACK

 

They tried to make her 38th, but she was AT LEAST 4th, according to their own people in the education ministry.

Now, they're trying to make her10th.

When will the hurting stop?

 

Last Friday, The FlOGG published a disturbing story of a young Monchy girl who had been robbed of her rightful glory as a top Common Entrance student.

The story accused the education ministry, not only of chronic screw ups in examinations and marking, but of doing their best to keep such things out of the public eye.

More bluntly, The FLOGG accused the minister, Robert Lewis, of being part of the cover up that downsized little Lovelle Motley of Monchy so that she was a top 40 student instead of top 10.

The FLOGG also asserted that some people in the education ministry were of the opinion that Motley had topped the exam and that when Motley’s teacher raised a stink, the ministry did their best to ensure that her revised scores did not embarrass them too much.

Last week, the inside track was that the official revised scores made Motley 4^th in the island. But Robert Lewis and his team are all genius, all the time and they knew they could do better than that.

And so by Monday morning, when Lewis was forced to go on Shelton Daniel’s party hack platform, 90 Minutes, on Radio St Lucia, Motley was pushed back from 4^th to 10^th.

The stats had spoken. And stats never lie.

Nyahnyah, nyahnyahnyah, The FLOGG was wro-ong, The FLOGG was wro-ong….lol…

I'm smug, I'm strong, I'm right and you're wrong

ROBERT LEWIS, THE BLACK PONTIUS PILATE

 

So why is it that after this interview, Robert Lewis is more the bad guy than ever before his life? Why is it that calls who thought Sifflet was malicious and unprofessional in his reporting still asked the minister, “How come we had to hear this from him? It feels like if he didn’t attack you, you would have never said anything about this.”

“Oh, we would have definitely said something,” the Seventh Day Adventist minister lied. “Definitely.”

And yet, he did not. Not until he learnt on Friday afternoon that he had two anuses, because The FLOGG had just torn him a new one.

ROBERT THE COWARDLY LION

When a little college boy with plaits was kept out of class because his principal thought that nigger plaits in class would bring about the end of Western Civilization, Robert Lewis kept his head down and said it was not his problem.

When people get shot in his constituency and reporters ask him about the rising violence between youth whom he represents, he told them, “That is a problem for the police.”

More and more, it is becoming clear that Robert Lewis is not the kind of person who can take responsibility for anything. Nothing is his fault. He never has good reason to get hands on with any problem. Any failure is not his fault and not his business to fix.

That’s what the police are for. That’s what the Chief Education is for. That’s what District Education Officers are for. Robert Lewis is not responsible for the sorry state of affairs in either his ministry or his constituency.

He’s just the leader.

He just makes policy.

That’s all.

It’s not his fault that everything around sucks as much as it did before he was in charge, if not more. That’s someone else’s fault.

He is to leadership as Richard Frederick was to policing – a guy with big talk, bluster and brandish who hides under the table when the bullets are flying and then when it’s over, tells stories at the after party like he’s half a hero,  just for being there.

“I’m not here to vindicate Robert Lewis,” Robert Lewis said on his forced talk show appearance, speaking of himself in the third person, as a primus inter pares should. “These things happen. We can’t go back and do the whole ceremony (for top 10 recognition). And in all of this, no one says how well the examiners executed their responsibilities.”

Oh right. Robert Lewis, the ceremony, the examiners…

That’s what’s important.

Some of us almost thought this was a story about doing right by a bright little girl. But Robert Lewis never got around to caring about Lovelle Motley in his Monday morning talk show appearance. Why?

Because this isn’t not about her at all. It’s about Robert Lewis. Everything is.

HOW TO BLOW YOUR SHOT AT BEING A NATIONAL HERO

Ironically, in his vainglorious effort to defend himself and the people around him from all criticism, Robert Lewis totally blew his shot to be a national hero.

If, instead of being a narcissistic hypocrite, Robert Lewis had simply focused on the little girl, everything The FLOGG had said of him over the weekend would have been promptly ignored.

All Robert Lewis had to do to pinjouk The FLOGG’s hypercritical bubble was approach the teachers and the family and arrange a special little celebration of Lovelle Motley’s achievement. Blast it on the midday news and the evening news. Everyone wins.

Game over.

The FLOGG would have been forced into a position of admitting that in spite of whatever errors and cover ups occurred, this man was the kind of man that we need to lead St Lucia. If he had been magnanimous to the girl, her teacher, her school, family and community, he would have become impervious to attack.

Instead, he did the only thing he knows how to do: Duck, dodge, deny and deflect. Avoid responsibility. Never say you’re sorry.

It was an advanced course in political self-destruction for the uninitiated. And all of it in the name of God.

GOD ISSUES A PRESS RELEASE

Both Daniel and Lewis, short on ammunition, given their unfortunate strategic position at the moral low ground of the situation, appealed to higher powers for help.

They had been appealing to God all weekend hoping for an unlikely miracle to help them escape the consequences of the Truth.

As good Christians, they quoted Bible, with Daniel accusing Jason Sifflet (floggus inter pares) of being a jobless loser information mercenary who profits nothing by selling his soul for peanuts.

Ironic. Shelton Daniel IS a paid political information merenary. Why would glass house man throw that stone? It puts him in the same moral predicament as Richard Frederick, except without the spy satellites watching his every move.

Lewis, meanwhile, insisted that only God can vindicate him.

As for God, at press time, She pushed a press release dissociating Herself from both Robert Lewis and Shelton Daniel. Of the latter, She said, “I know Him not.” Of the former: “I know you Thyatira, and you are neither hot nor cold.”

The release from God went on to say: “Maybe you can’t go back and do the right thing, but you can go forward and do the right thing. Something extremely special must be done to make restitution to Lovelle Motley.

“When the minister says how well his staff executed their responsibilities, I had to laugh because, no matter how well they did, they still mess up. There are chronic systemic errors that need addressing. Furthermore, they did not execute their responsibilities well. If they had, I would not be writing this press release disassociating myself from anything to do with Robert Lewis (or that shil Shelton Daniel, for that matter).

“Nonsense like this is the norm at the education ministry,” God continued, “and this is why I helped you to win elections in the first place. It occur to Me that either I misjudged you or you screwed up your divine assignment. And as everyone knows, I don’t make mistakes, so brother, you are in a world of trouble.

“I also want to call attention to the vast difference between your words and your actions. You say that you’re not seeking vindication but all you did on that show was seek vindication. You say you want to reform and improve education but the new school leavers this summer attest to your abject failure to improve anything meaningful. You failed to care that girl for a second during the interview. And you say you’re not running away from the callers, but you took two calls and then when I called and asked you to go over your argument, Shelton Daniel practically told me to piss off and hung up on me, while you packed your things and ran away. It looks bad for you, Robert.”

As for the vindication of Robert Lewis, God said, “Robert Lewis might want consider getting a new religion. Because right now, he’s not suffering the little children. The little children are suffering because of him. Not cool, dread. Not cool.”