The exo-skeleton

The candidate for the presidency of the Portuguese Republic, Marques Mendes, stated that Israel's recent attack on Iran is "a completely gratuitous, deeply unnecessary and, above all, very dangerous intervention". And he added "with regard to the Gaza Strip" that it is "an intolerable situation", noting, as is customary in exculpatory terms, that "Israel's right to self-defence is not at stake", before adding "but – always the fateful but – Israel is abusing its intervention, creating an unprecedented humanitarian crisis and trying to decimate a people."

With his little verbal pirouette – “decimating a people” – Marques Mendes avoids using the term genocide. He is thus fishing to the left, surreptitiously adhering to the idea; he is fishing to the right by refusing the word of the left. The double game is clear. And perhaps he believes himself to be intelligent, clever at least. With great hermeneutical charity, one would say it was a functional necessity. A small contortion to one side, another to the other and, with the help of an imagined law of compensation, he thought, no great harm would come to the world. Up to this point – let it be repeated: with great hermeneutical charity – one could close one’s eyes to the snot, downplay the nonsense, disregard the chameleon arts, and relegate the matter to the realm of electoral grocery accounts.

But Marques Mendes sweated and struggled for a long time in a television studio – he presented many graphs for people at home to understand. He invested a lot of his life in the campaign for a victory, which seemed easy. To achieve this, he followed the script he imposed on himself with pride and tenacity. The admiral came to change his plans. The impact and media intensity of wearing a uniform in the extreme conditions of confinement and a suspended life, together with the results obtained with the color of life, which the drab studios did not allow him to do, left Marques Mendes in a bad situation.

And then he revealed what he was made of. Instead of asserting himself politically, which would guarantee him an honourable defeat in the worst case scenario, he sank into a hopeless despair. And gathering up every scrap to see if he could find a loaf of bread, he spared no expense. Obtuse in form and content, his statements – which he himself does not believe for a moment – ​​about Israel’s attack on Iran, an attack that defends, firstly, Israel, secondly, neighbouring countries (see, for example, Jordan’s position) and, thirdly, Europe and the West (see, for example, the position of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz) show what no one wanted to see: a total lack of scruples and values, a readiness to exchange the country’s interests and solidarity with allies and friends for 30 coins counted in votes. But they also show a willingness to betray himself, and therefore to betray whoever it may be. And the people at home understood, they understood very well. They don't see him as a sham of a spine, they just see a peddler of convictions dressed in a media exoskeleton.