Dear Feltri,
Sangiuliano, in your opinion, should resign or not resign following the statements made by this self-styled collaborator of the minister, Maria Rosaria Boccia? The lady claims to have worked for the ministry and to have never paid a single euro for travel, transfers and accommodations. Sangiuliano swears that public money was not used for these expenses and Meloni says she trusts the words of her minister. Who paid then? And what do you think of this scandal?
Beatrice Santoro
It is shocking that the private affairs of a politician, even if he holds a public and institutional role, arouse greater interest and the morbid curiosity of the press and the people than the proposals, initiatives, and results achieved by the politician himself during his term of office. But this is a reality to which I have now resigned myself, although I am not fascinated by it and have never been obsessed by this kind of beach or beauty salon or backyard gossip, which nevertheless fascinates my colleagues so much. I feel sad when I realize that television and newspapers feed us this debate about Boccia and Sangiuliano every day, complete with inappropriate and unfortunate jokes. We are talking nonsense. And to date we have no reason not to believe the truth declared by the minister: not a single euro of public money has been used to finance the collaboration activity or the travel of this doctor, Maria Rosaria Boccia, who was not even offered a coffee with public money, as the minister assures, who absolutely must not resign. Prime Minister Meloni is right to trust Gennaro. When and if Sangiuliano’s statements are denied with irrefutable evidence (which to date has not been done even by Boccia) and it is therefore demonstrated that the lady from Campania traveled, stayed and moved around enjoying public resources, then and only then will we be able to rail against the minister, be scandalized, rise up and accuse him of something. For now, Sangiuliano has not been the author of any inappropriate behavior. Moreover, I have extraordinary faith in this man, serious and respectable, who would not be able to be dishonest even if he had a gun pointed at his temple and they forced him. For his moral standing and not only for his professional skills and competences, I chose him as my deputy at Libero. Gennaro, with whom I wrote two books for the Mondadori publishing house, is not only a colleague I respect but also a person I admire, precisely for his rectitude. Granted that he had an affair with this woman, and let’s not beat around the bush because this is insinuated, I ask myself: is it perhaps a fault, a crime, a felony? No, absolutely not. What happens in other people’s bedrooms does not concern us, including ministers. I think that Sangiuliano was naive and this is not a crime either. In fact, I wonder why this lady felt the need to record and videotape everything. You know what I call it: bad faith. Perhaps there was a blackmailing intention behind it. It is legitimate to hypothesize this. After all, it is insinuated that the minister used public resources for what is described as his lover, so why shouldn’t we suppose that Maria Rosaria has hatched some sort of plot to then accuse the ministry and the minister, at the first opportunity, rising to the honors (or dishonors) of the news? Is it legitimate to malign him and not her? There are people who go so much in search of publicity that they are happy with even the bad, even the very bad. What matters now is to be a victim, to be recognized as a victim, the victim of something, of someone, better if a male and even better if a powerful person. And here is the case to be fed to a public opinion bulimic with gossip and to a press capable only of being scandalized and moralizing is cooked and served.
I’ll dig into a rich dish.
Enjoy your meal.