Jair Messias and King Midas turned inside out.

By Eric Nepomuceno, for 247

Decades ago, referring to a United States president whose name I no longer remember, the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano wrote something that has never left my memory.

He said, regarding that president, that he was a reverse King Midas. While Greek mythology assures us that Midas, king of Phrygia, turned everything he touched into gold, the leader in question turned everything he touched into shit.

Galeano could have used the word "excrement." He opted for the synonym, he told me at the time, to tell the truth more forcefully.

That phrase immediately came to mind when I thought, once again, about Jair Messias.

It's true that he knew how to transform public resources not into gold, but into cash to pay bills, teach his children to plunder the Treasury for their own benefit, the wonders of the world of "kickbacks," use his father the president's corporate credit card, and so on. 

Mrs. Michelle, the wife, seems to have learned all about the advantages of that card.

Aside from that, though, everything he and his family gang touched literally turned to shit. 

Cleaning up all this filth is part of President Lula's immense task. 

The problem is that every day more and more revelations emerge about how much Jair Messias and his cronies have been affected.

The fugitive remains a fugitive in Orlando, Florida. He will apply for a new tourist visa because the official presidential visa he used to enter the United States is now expiring. 

He thinks that if he goes back, he'll be arrested. 

Everything indicates that this will not happen, that he will first lose the right to run for any office that requires an election, but at this point, who knows. 

Just to be on the safe side, he preferred to stay in Goofy's neighborhood. 

One of the sons, Carluxo, the first national councilor in history (elected to the Rio de Janeiro City Council, he lived in Brasília most of the time), is also still there. 

He tells his gang that he's afraid to return and suffer some kind of attack on his safety. Nonsense: he's really afraid of going to jail.

Meanwhile, new debris continues to appear, caused by the worst president in the history of the Republic.

Yes, yes: the mess he left behind is immense. And Lula knows it. Hopefully, all his ministers will also know and put their utmost effort into the urgent task of cleaning it up. 

My biggest concern is whether he touched the Armed Forces and the Military Police throughout the country. And if so, in which areas and how many people. 

Hopefully, he hasn't touched anything.

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