He acted as a minister, in short, and not as a demagogic spokesperson for the social network, which is what we knew him best around these parts. I was watching it live and at times it made me want to applaud. Ole. Not only for him, because the thing was in conjunction with the president of the Riojans, Chaplain by last name.
Notice how easy it is, or seems. One (Chaplain) has an idea. It is nothing crazy, nor a toast to the sun to poke the opponent in the eye; that is, a couple more trains to Madrid. Another (Puente) examines it and says: “Look, this can’t be done now because, I tell you…”. And he tells her. And in what he tells him there are reasonable reasons, which the other assumes, refutes where possible and accepts what is not. And in the end there is a commitment to what can be done from a reasonable point of view and within a reasonable time frame. Not ideal, not perfect. But possible, feasible and verifiable.
All around a table where there are also technicians, the kind who handle numbers, and not aspiring leaders of the free world who handle headlines.
It was a nice press conference, actually, if only for its lack of fuss. I hate with all the fibers of my soul the “historic” agreements, the sanguine speeches and the appeals to having changed the lives of citizens with a stroke of a pen and because I am worth it. Hopefully always like this: small and tangible things, field arguments and concrete commitments that are easily monitored and verifiable.
Puente will probably return to Twitter in a while, let’s not ask for impossible things either. Capellán is not in the habit of getting involved in national politics (his is an apparent disinterest in Madrid that borders on the pathological) but there is no regional government that does not screw up from time to time.
But for now, let me thank you for this little space that smells like a job well done. A man on one side and another on the other jump over the wall to, in short, simply do. That should be the definition of a politician. People who do things. Nothing less.
These things are like a bad nightmare: politicians who destroy a play because, they believe, it will offend children, fathers, mothers, the elderly or dogs. It bothers me deeply for two things. The first, because in most cases, and this one from Logroño with the ‘Despotorre’ does not seem like an exception, what is censored does not even remotely justify the excuses that lead to censoring it.
And two, and perhaps the main one, because public institutions should not start thinking about what does or does not offend their neighbors. Being offended is a personal matter, a threshold that each person sets with their conscience, their taste and their prejudices. Public money must be used to promote proposals of all kinds and so that each person can then choose, being an adult for everything: my offense is mine, and I have no right to try to silence what offends me.
Anyway, these things happen again and again, and there is always a politician who appeals to “normality”, that dangerous entelechy. How useless all this ranting.
The gestation, origin and outcome of this amnesty thing is painful. That’s it. Legality was twisted (we’ll see if it goes beyond or over the line) to accommodate things so that a president could get the necessary votes. Well, too much has already been said about all this. But Puigdemont’s reaction immediately after obtaining his freedom continues to cause me an additional scandal. Another ultimatum, another “either Sánchez or me.” What if in the end, well, this entire ignoble film has been for absolutely nothing?
