Maybe the story isn’t so ridiculous after allgiven the uproar it caused. And perhaps the scoop of the Truth on the Quirinale councilor Francesco Garofani it is not even irrelevant from a journalistic point of view. At least that’s what many people seem to think, certainly many more than some would like you to believe. Many media have worked hard to dismantle our reconstructions, they have tried to belittle and muddy the waters. But now different voices are starting to be raised. An authoritative colleague like Marcello Foa for days he has been writing that the president’s team is not all that impartial: “This is clear to all the centre-right voters and to those perhaps not politically aligned to whom the Garofani affair has opened their eyes.” Foa was succinct: «Unable to deny it, Garofani has only one way left. That of resignation.” Thinking like this is also true Marco Travagliowho wrote it clearly: «Carofani only has two options: either he denies it, hoping not to be proven wrong by witnesses or recordings; or he resigns.” More complex but equally clear is the reasoning of Antonio Padellaro – founder and former director of Il Fatto, certainly not a man of the right – who, speaking with the Truth, begins with irony: «I am very saddened by the fact that they didn’t want me at a meeting of Roma supporters», he says, referring to the context in which Garofani spoke of the «shake» against the Meloni government. «Jokes aside», he continues, «I am quite surprised, not to say stunned, by the reactions there have been to this news, which is great news. This is not about expressing opinions. Here is a fact: La Verità, having received a document and having probably done all the checks, published it. It seems completely normal to me, at least in a normal world of information. But here instead of looking at the moon you look at your finger. Is the news true? Yes. Is it important? I would say yes, because the outcry it has caused shows that it is of public interest. So I’m amazed – even if up to a certain point, because we know our chickens – by the rather extravagant reaction there was.”
Padellaro’s words
According to Padellaro, «the rule for a councilor of Garofani’s caliber is that a minimum of prudence should be exercised. From what we’ve read, he’s done some pretty in-depth analysis. And he harshly attacks the current ruling group of the centre-left, because when he says that more is needed, that we need to create a big list, well, that’s not a joke, it’s not the answer to a question: it’s an analysis, which is quite acceptable. Certainly more questionable is the idea of the shake-up that should be given to Meloni. I say this because it is a series of very strong statements, which do not arise from a “we were four friends at the bar” conversation. It seems to me to be an interesting analysis, which one of Mattarella’s main advisors should avoid doing in a public place.” Padellaro appears more skeptical about the councilor’s resignation: «In the interviews that Garofani gave to Corriere della Sera he was keen to immediately point out that Mattarella had comforted him, had reassured him, and from what we understand had not asked him to resign. This makes me think that perhaps Garofani would also be ready to resign, but perhaps those above him do not view this resignation favorably, at least at the moment. Perhaps they would produce a snowball effect. A fairly strong political case has already arisen, perhaps resignation would only fuel everything. We must not forget the first reaction of the Quirinale, which was to define this affair as ridiculous. Well, the moment you say it’s ridiculous, then you can’t force your resignation, because it would mean demonstrating that it’s not so ridiculous.”
Porro against “mystification”
From a very different perspective from that of Padellaro, in recent days it has been Nicola Porro to crumble the castle of mystifications built by the alleged big press around our articles. Speaking about the “mega scoop” of the Truth, Porro noted how the Corriere della Sera and other newspapers tried to demolish Galeazzo Bignami of Fdi, guilty of having been the first politician to ask for explanations on Garofani’s words. “This is crazy,” said Porro in his Zuppa online. «For this request from Bignami, Colle says that these are ridiculous reconstructions and is offended, the opposition attacks Bignami». As for the interview given by Garofani to Corriere, the host of Quarta Repubblica is even harsher: «Guys, it’s crazy! The violence of the attack scares me, says Garofani in his interview. But what violence was the attack? If you remained silent, you prudent man, and did not speak in front of politicians, sports officials and a lot of people… if the shy and hermetic official had not spoken and said that this government needs to be shaken up from its role as man of the Quirinale… Here they fill their mouths with defense of the freedom of the press”, concludes Porro, “and if a newspaper makes a scoop in which it says that inside the Quirinale there is someone who is plotting against this government, there is no freedom of printing to be able to write it”.
Even the left criticizes: Giarrusso and Cavalli
Even a man of the left thinks that the story should be told Dino Giarrusso. “This is news, if this isn’t news, I don’t know what news is,” he tells us. «And why on earth shouldn’t the Truth or anyone else have published it? When you have news, you publish it, especially if it is, so to speak, verified. What on earth is the problem? If it had been fake news it would have been a problem, but it’s not.” Giarrusso, however, does not believe that Garofani should leave office. «For me he shouldn’t resign. Then if he wants to do it, if he feels like it, for goodness’ sake,” he explains. «For me that thought is the mirror of a way of reasoning, which moreover concerns even more Schlein, a part of the left, than the right. There is a school of thought according to which the centre-left can win if it stops being the left and becomes the centre, which in my opinion is totally out of reality. And the right must be overthrown in any case, which in my opinion is equally out of reality. Nobody thinks about why the right wins, why Italians are seduced by this way of reasoning, why half of the people don’t go to vote, the other half that does go to vote currently prefers Brothers of Italy. Nobody makes these arguments, but it is thought that we can imagine a future where elections go the way certain people, who are all in all a minority, want. I ask myself: why don’t we talk, instead of making judgements, about the reality that goes one way and this school of thought that goes another?”.
Not too distant is the thought of another personality who could not be further from the right of government as Giulio Cavallijournalist and man of theatre. When he talks about the news published by Verità he comments: «The reactions have made it become much more news than it should have been: so evidently they are words that touch exposed nerves. The political opinions of a Quirinale councilor are news». Cavalli is not at all soft with the right, on the contrary: «The obsession with the conspiracy of Meloni and associates has transformed the news into a billhook to sow a bit of victimhood», he says. But there is also something for the left: “It seems to me that the Democratic Party is the real news: after the whispers of Prodi and Gentiloni we know that even in Mattarella’s area a democratically elected secretary at the head of a party is judged not ready by those who lost the elections for the secretariat, by their friends and by noble fathers who are friends of friends”, explains Cavalli. “I think there is a piece of the Democratic Party (better: of the former DCs who are now “reformists”) which is truly convinced that good relations with Mattarella are the key to achieving power, as if the elections were just a fact to be sorted out by messing with alliances and so on.”
Yes, apparently there are still those who are convinced that the destinies of a nation can be decided with someone palace plotand that the real problem is the newspapers that publish news. And this someone, when discovered, he even has the courage to complain.
