You will find in the current edition of The Bemudian magazine a most fascinating account of the life of the Rev. Dr. Francis L. Patton ("The Grand Old Man of Bermuda", by Duncan McDowall), which I strongly recommend that you read.

In Bermuda, we have a school named after this distinguished and very accomplished gentleman who was born in Bermuda in 1843 and who died in the same Warwick home in 1932.

I have to confess that I always wondered who Francis Patton was; and while I never took the time to find out, I am glad that I now know.

The Rev. Dr. Patton was at one time undeniably the most famous Bermudian in the world, having distinguished himself as a preacher, theologian, academic and ultimately the head of the famous "Ivy League" institution known as Princeton University.

A personal friend and adviser to a number of world leaders, including US Presidents Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson, this son of the soil is pictured on a 35 cent stamp recently issued by Bermuda's postal authorities in honour of a number of people who have contributed historically to Bermuda's educational development ("Pioneers of Progress").

Apart from the fact that I think we should all know about Dr Patton, it is largely because the author of this fascinating article on his life drew reference to one of Aesop's fables which I had studied many years ago during a brief flirtation I had had with the Greek language (I loved Latin; but Greek was Greek to me.)

Here is the story, not quite the way I remember it from my school days, but as Patton's biographer states it in The BERMUDIAN while discussing Dr Patton's refusal to permit the development of a law school at Princeton:

"The 'young Turks' in the Princeton faculty soon grew restless. Woodrow Wilson (not yet US President) threatened to leave, his dream of a law school stymied by (Patton, then President of the University). "Our president," he confided to historian Frederick Turner, "does not bother us by having a mistaken policy, he daunts us by having no will or policy at all."

Wilson likened Patton to King Log in Aesop's fable about the frogs in the pond who asked the god Zeus for a new leader. Zeus sent them a log as a ruler. Nothing, of course, happened.

When the frogs demanded a more dynamic leader, Zeus sent them a stork, which promptly ate them.

How very sad for those frogs. The log was of great usefulness in allowing them to cross the river with a minimum of energy consumption. Yet they failed utterly to appreciate its value.

Even as young Berkeleyite I was always intrigued by that story.

It was, I think, the late F.S,. Furbert, Berkeley's famous former principal, who when discussing it with me introduced to me the phrase "Be careful what you ask for, you may just get it"".

Even then, I understood the political significance of the story, particularly as I would have heard it in the 1960s and because I grew up in a politically conscious environment. My uncle the late Joe (Pork Chop( Mills was President of the BIU and had led the longshoremen through a difficult and bloody battle for union recognition. I learned at an early age that it is never simply a question of "us" versus "them". There is always within "us" the remnants of a tragic legacy characterised by jealousy and envy, by mutual betrayal. We are sometimes little more than "crabs in a barrel", pulling each other down and quietly glorying in each other's demise and setbacks as if misery truly does love company.

How else do we explain why Bermuda is still a colony with absolutely no imminent prospect of self-determination in sight? We really should be ashamed of ourselves that we have so little sense of cohesiveness as a community with which to endow the generation behind us.

I had resolved to eschew, at least for a little longer, any writing on Bermuda's political scene. Frankly, it was actually becoming boring, if not banal. The Opposition UBP, which would normally have been able to capitalise on the reportedly diminished popularity of the PLP, has had to face that reality that it is even less popular. In fact, the UBP appears to have all but completely disappeared up its own rear end. News that Trevor Moniz, possibly the most rabidly conservative and right-wing Parliamentarian the UBP has ever produced in recent years, has now become their Deputy Leader tells me all I need to know. Moniz is the proverbial nail in the UBP coffin, mark my words.

I had been enjoying writing about the US political scene and more particularly about "the Obama phenomenon."

But Premier Dr Ewart Brown's detractors, both inside and outside the Party, have seemed either incapable or rigidly unwilling to accept that the leadership election of many months is over. "It is finished", Dr Brown pointedly and publicly declared during his speech on the opening night of the Party's Annual General Conference.

Why in the face of formidable economic challenges on the horizon including a global recession, a universal banking credit crunch, the clear prospect of a serious decline in Americans' capacity to spend tourist dollars here or anywhere else, we would even entertain the idea of a change in political leadership here and now is completely beyond my comprehension. The man was elected by the Party to a four-year term, after all.

There have been vague references (without any specifics whatsoever) made by at least one of Dr Brown's detractors, namely former Attorney General Phil Perinchief, to the alleged betrayal and abandonment by Dr Brown of the Party's "core values and principles". There have been a few published remarks from unknown and un-named "PLP insiders" and "PLP sources" - who again I say may or may not have been invented- and other anonymous individuals allegedly "in-the-know" claiming things like "Dr Brown represents Americans" (whatever that means).

But beyond that, no one has raised a single specific against the man.

I felt compelled this week to point this out in a lengthy and carefully developed piece which I wrote for the local daily, the Royal Gazette.

In that piece, I referred to Phil Perinchief's and former Premier Alex Scott's pot-stirring.

It seems that Royal Gazette editor Bill Zuill either provided a copy of my article to Messrs Scott and Perinchief or gave them an advance look at some or all of its contents. I have no problem with that. In my article - which I am not in the slightest ashamed to say was a clear and robust defence of Dr Brown's leadership- I made the following disclosure:

"Call me a toady. Call me obsequious. Say that I am only saying these things to further my own selfish agenda and to meet my own needs. I accept that after years of suffering under a vicious and racist "You won't work in this town ever again" plot, it is Dr Brown and his Government which has given me my first employment in Bermuda in over a decade."

Predictably, Alex Scott's reported response was that my writing was little more than "Tommy Tucker singing for his supper."

But Mr Perinchief's response was absolutely ballistic to say the least. It was also very personally abusive.

I cannot and I shall never descend to that level of personal abuse; I regard it as unseemly and entirely unstatesmanlike.

Mine are arguments based on principle; and I was both shocked and saddened by Phil Perinchief's so-called "rebuttal", replete with the kinds of attacks on my character which I have for years sustained from those on The Other Side but which I should never expect from a "brother" in the Labour Movement.

I provided The Royal Gazette with my immediate response, but it was not published. Accordingly, I set out here my response in the hope that it will be clearly understood that I have no intention of mudwrestling with Phil Perinchief or anyone else. My response to Mr Perinchief's Royal Gazette comments are as follows:

"What a sad sad place Bermuda is becoming. There is not one word or iota of principle in any of this so-called 'rebuttal' from Phil Perinchief.

"Instead, we see the typical age-old retreat to ad hominem attack in a transparent attempt to shift focus by demonizing those with whom we disagree. Mr Perinchief prefers simply to delight in the fact that I have had professional and personal difficulties and plays to the ugliest parts of our souls.

"My article, whether you agree with it or not, was based entirely on principle. Mr Perinchief's response, like the "Tommy Tucker singing for his supper" jibe from Alex Scott, was based on something entirely different: personal contempt, jealousy and vindictiveness.

That is precisely the kind of mentality which has kept us, as a people, behind; and which threatens ultimately to destroy any hope of cohesiveness in Bermuda. So much for 'brotherhood.'

"How ironic it is that I am the one who is being told to 'grow up.'

"I have carefully stated my reasons for continuing to support Dr Brown. I did so knowing that I was vulnerable to this kind of "never kick a man until he is down" response. Given the substance, quality and tone of Mr Perinchief's response, it is highly doubtful that he could ever have survived the kind of ordeal that I have had to sustain for almost a decade. Still, the grace of God is a truly wonderful thing. I am in fact neither down nor am I defenceless; and the truth is that Phil Perinchief's abuse is rather like being "gummed to death by a dead sheep" (as former UK Foreign Secretary. Denis Healey would have said.)

"This is not about me. And it is certainly not about Phil Perinchief either. If the people of Bermuda want ultimately to be led by this kind of vindictive, petty and unprincipled mentality, I can only pray for Bermuda.

"Beyond that, there is nothing of substance in Mr Perinchief's rebuttal that could be said to merit the dignity of any further discourse from me."

There. I have said it. And as Dr Ewart Brown said this week, "it is finished."

Next week, I shall return to the US election and the Obama phenomenon. It seems much safer, at least for me.