Last Thursday afternoon, I became exasperated while watching the Manatt-Dudus commission of enquiry. I had run out of superlatives to describe K.D. Knight's cross-examination of Prime Minister Bruce Golding and felt I would be unforgivably remiss and stingy to simply describe his performance as brilliant. Afterward, in struggling for words to capture what I had just witnessed, I had to settle for "intellectually orgasmic".
Perhaps it's the intellectual environment in Jamaica - or lack of it - which would cause me to deliver what my good friend and colleague Colin Steer would, no doubt, regard as an embarrassingly fawning opening paragraph. But when you are starved of good argumentation and a celebration of reason in the local environment, even the smell of it is delectable.
In K.D.'s own words, he was leading the prime minister "in a process of reasoning", a commitment he lived up to.
In a cross-examination which demonstrated a gripping mastery of research, information, recall, quickness of mind, intricacy of Government - as well as pacing, modulation, wit and charm - K.D. Knight ditched the aggressiveness and abrasiveness many had been complaining about and gave the prime minister maximum respect. When he said, "I have been a model" of respect, he was not exaggerating.
It was as if he wanted to show all Jamaica - and the world - that he could defeat the worthy opponent without any unfair or foul means. I hope he keeps up the respectfulness and restraint, for impoliteness and abrasiveness are redundant weapons in his arsenal. They are for lesser combatants.
I said to People's National Party Chairman Bobby Pickersgill and other high-ranking party officials on Thursday that if we could conduct our domestic political discourse at that level, what a difference that would make to our democracy. But I must stop dreaming and come back down to earth (Jamaica).
