Today's newspaper wraps up tomorrow's sandwich, according to an old, now-obsolete image, but the loyalties of the headlines can be even more ephemeral. Mariano Rajoy had a lot of power in The World, as Pedro J. Ramírez knows, who attributed his dismissal from the media outlet he founded to editorial tensions with the now former leader of the PP. This Friday, however, the newspaper came out with an interesting headline: "PP ministers warned Rajoy about the lobby founded by Montoro." The day before, just when it was time to explain the scandal affecting the former Minister of Economy and Finance, the newspaper found no space on the front page and none of the eight topics it highlighted was his indictment. Now, however, it suddenly becomes the main topic and the opening of the front page. But there is a relevant change: the subject of the news is no longer Montoro but Rajoy, who is accused of having been comprehensive with the mischief of the person under investigation. I believe that the newspaper, which has provided us with so many excellent journalistic investigations, is about to unravel the great mystery of who was behind the extremely cryptic entry M. Rajoy made in the Bárcenas papers.
I suppose the objective of all this is to frame this scandal within the leadership of the PP in the old days, to save Feijóo. Saying that the ministers were already warning about it sells the idea that the party doesn't tolerate corruption and that the problem lay with two specific people: the one who allegedly benefited the gas companies, and the president who couldn't detect the stench of methane. Or that he did smell it, but was already doing well; that anything could be. Rajoy would now be the firewall preventing the scandal from spreading. There's a precedent: King Juan Carlos has also been turned into a (relative) pim-pam-pum to save an institution in question.
