EDITOR, The Tribune. PERRY Gladstone Christie seems to be proud of his new slogan; "I am the bridge from Sir Lynden to the future" Really? What does he really mean? Well, maybe we should revisit the past. When the PLP won the government in 1966, it inherited a disciplined and admired Civil Service. Fast track on the "Bridge" to the future. We now have a bloated and inefficient Civil Service with an entrenched history of malfeasance. I remember quite well when the ubiquitous drug trade was at its peak in the seventies and eighties. Every family island settlement located on the coastline had a major drug trafficker operating therein. Virtually all of the local drug barons were PLP Generals. Fast forward on the "Bridge", the drug boys who are not awaiting extradition have graduated into enforcers and cold blooded hit-men. Sir Lynden craftily cultivated a culture of mistrust of foreigners and white people, and it kept him in power for a long time. Fast forward on the "Bridge" the "New" PLP are still chewing on this old, stale, contaminated bone, thereby keeping the PLP's spirit of xenophobia fully entrenched. We put Bahamians first, is merely their euphemism for intolerance. Let me explain. This slogan is calculated to infer that the FNM puts foreigners and white people first. They are well aware that this is a lie, but they don't care as long as their supporters suck it up. The FNM parliamentarians are all raw bone Bahamians, it is so disingenuous and silly to accuse them of putting foreigners before Bahamians. Unfortunately, the PLP (true to form) continue to live down to my low estimation of them. However, I expected at least one new candidate to defy the norm. Dr Michael Darville is a well liked, well respected, prominent physician in Freeport. I know his father and I know him. Regrettably, he has fallen prey to the PLP's Achilles' heel, Race division. I am a proud Bahamian whose ancestral roots are deeper than the hole that the PLP are digging for themselves. I love the Bahamas more than any other country and Bahamians more than any other nationality. As a real Bahamian man, my priority has always been; God, country, mother, wife, and daughters. Perhaps, that is why I chose to marry a Bahamian woman, 'cause I put Bahamians first. In the Bahamas, there is empirical data that Bahamian women have excelled moreso than Bahamian men. Consequently, eligible successful Bahamian males are in short supply. I suspect that there are scores of successful eligible single Bahamian women who would have wanted to marry prominent Bahamians like Dr Darville, Jerome Fitzgerald, Philip Davis, Fred Mitchell, Obie Wilchcombe. The first three are married to foreign women. Is that putting Bahamians first? The other two obviously don't think Bahamian women are good enough to marry. "Them two" almost eighty and never walk down the aisle. Don't get me wrong, I have no beef with Bahamians marrying foreign. Their spousal choice is their business. However, when you enter politics and start being hypocritical...you make it my business! Furthermore a word of caution to the aforementioned "big three", you are being disrespectful to your wives when you continue to bray like a jackass "we put Bahamians first." Just for the record, Hubert Alexander Ingraham, has done more for Bahamians than any other Bahamian, former Prime Ministers or otherwise. His regime has benefited Bahamians of all complexions and class distinction, especially the poor. So please stop this repugnant nonsense, "we put Bahamians first." THE SCRIBBLER Nassau, February 27, 2012.