In April 2023, I made a request for documents from an organization subject to the federal law on access to information. In principle, the documents should have been delivered to me within three months. I’m still waiting for them. Not enough to write to your mother, much less a column, you might say.
But now, for almost a year, I have been given all kinds of excuses. It’s coming, it’s almost ready, you’ll have it by the end of the week, yes, yes, soon… and it never happens. At the beginning of February, when I came back, we acted as a surprise: but we have already sent you everything, hundreds of printed pages!
” Eh ? I haven’t received anything, I replied. Do you have proof of sending?
— Ah, uh, no… we went to take the package ourselves to The Press…”
It was at this point, I think, that my bullshit-o-meter really went into overdrive. Oh yeah, so the documents got “lost in the trunk”? Really ? Mind you, that may well be true. Besides, there is probably not much of interest in these “hundreds of printed pages”.
But it’s stronger than me: the more I feel like I’m being fooled, the more I tell myself that perhaps, buried in these damn documents, is a scandal so scandalously scandalous that it would suddenly bring down sure the Trudeau government…
Many British people undoubtedly had the same reflex when faced with the flat apologies of Kate Middleton, plunged into embarrassment for having published, on Sunday, a retouched family photo. “Like many amateur photographers, I occasionally experiment with editing,” the princess wrote on Monday on X. Sorry for the confusion, friends!
This is undoubtedly the truth. Most likely, Kate Middleton abused Photoshop to release a “perfect” family portrait, in which everyone smiles/has their eyes open/looks at the camera…
However, in context, these excuses ring false. This official photo was the very first of the Princess of Wales since her mystery abdominal operation in January. Its aim was to reassure the good people: See? The princess beams, surrounded by her children. We won’t tell you what she’s suffering from, but trust us, everything is fine.
It was necessary to dispel the rumors and conspiracy theories that abound on the internet, fueled by the stubborn silence of Kensington Palace. So, we published a photo full of anomalies: a missing sleeve, a truncated zipper, abnormally long arms, twisted fingers, a blurred hand, another without a wedding ring…
Really, enough to reassure all the conspiracy theorists on the planet!
Far from reassuring anyone, the retouched photo of Kate Middleton has reignited the wildest speculations about her state of health.
Clearly, the royal family, which nevertheless knows a thing or two about the power of images, has mastered the art of sinking to perfection. More than ever, she seems to have something to hide.
The art of sinking is not reserved for the monarchy, far from it. Among the followers of this discipline, we no longer count the personalities who persist in making their cause worse, one bogus excuse at a time.
In Montreal, a former mayor texts while driving and blames a faulty cell phone base. In France, a former secretary of state who did not declare his taxes explains that he suffers from “administrative phobia”. In Italy, a tennis player, positive in a doping test, says that her mother with cancer dropped her bottle of pills in the pasta.
Without forgetting this ex-president, in the United States, who piles up top-secret documents in his Florida villa, claiming to have declassified them through the infinite power of his thought…
By what mechanism can the human mind come to believe that it is better to tell an absolutely implausible story rather than admit an error?
From Kate Middleton to Donald Trump, I admit, I get lost. The former probably didn’t lie, among other notable distinctions between the two personalities. Still, the Princess of Wales would do well to play the transparency card.
Kate Middleton has a right to her privacy, of course. There is no obligation to disclose his medical information. But failing to reveal what she is suffering from, she should publish the original photo, without retouching and without delay. This is the only way to restore British confidence.
And my explosive documents (or not), in all this? Maybe I’ll talk to you about it again one day. At the rate things are going, I hope you’re not in a hurry.