Redux: Berlusconi O' Berlusconi
Berlusconi O' Berlusconi
Berlusconi and the Bishops
Berlusconi And the Moroccan Dancer
Berlusconi Claims Not to Notice Israeli Annex Wall
Redux: Blackwater Charges Dropped
You got to love the Italian prime minister. He is a true joy to observe: his complete oblivion to just how much of a buffoon he is is truly amusing. Berlusconi fancies himself funny. A clown he is, let’s give props where due.
His list an infamous remarks, including once giving advice to Italian teenagers on sex appeal, making a Jewish quote which was condemned as antisemitic, and also making a joke belittling the crimes of history, are too numerous to count in total.
Silvio Berlusconi is also well-known more than for his off-color remarks, but for his sex scandals.
His ex-wife has accused him of having had an affair with an 18 year old model. Berlusconi is probably not the most respectful of men toward women: just look at how he greeted America’s First Lady Michele Obama.
While greeting her, in the presence of her husband, Berlusconi presented himself as if he was ready to hug Michele and sweep her off her feet. And Obama does not look amused:
So news recently broke in Italy that Berlusconi may have had another affair with a 17-year old Moroccan dancer. The girl, who is now 18, denies sex but says that he gave her money, a diamond jewel and a car.
When confronted with yet another sordid episode and with opposition calls to resign, Berlusconi once again allowed his humor and wit to guide out of a tough scandal:
On Tuesday in Milan, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi tried to play the sex scandal that has cast his political future in doubt for laughs by joking at a motorcycle show that it is “better to be fond of beautiful girls than gay.”
Mr. Berlusconi’s remark, which was caught on video and posted online by the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, prompted anger from Italian gays, who staged a demonstration outside the prime minister’s residence in Rome where they held up signs that said, among other things, “Better Gay Than a Pig.”
For keeping what resembles a harem, Berlusconi has been likened to the equally stupid and sexual chauvinist Libyan leader Qaddafi:
Redux: This scandal may be the 'straw that broke the camel's back' and we may be seeing the end of the Berlusconi era:
Brazenness got the prime minister through the last bout of sex scandals in 2009. Will it work this time? Last year’s controversies battered an otherwise strong government. Mr Berlusconi had cleared Naples of the garbage mountains that helped topple the previous, centre-left government. He had successfully fused his own party with that of the formerly neo-fascist Gianfranco Fini to create a single movement of the right, the People of Freedom (PdL). Italy’s banks had survived the credit crisis almost unscathed, and many voters still believed the government’s claim that the economy as a whole had fared better than any in Europe. Its popularity ratings were high.
Things look different today. One recent poll put the PdL just 2.5 percentage points ahead of the biggest opposition group, the Democratic Party. PdL supporters have been drifting away from the party since May when the government performed an abrupt U-turn, declaring that a package of painful adjustment measures was needed to prevent Italy going the way of Greece.
Paralysis has spread through the administration as it has been repeatedly distracted by financial scandals involving Mr Berlusconi’s ministers and officials, and by his attempts to provide himself with immunity from justice. Last month Corriere della Sera, a newspaper, calculated that, excluding routine legislation, parliament had approved only ten new measures this year. Consob, the body that regulates the stock exchange, has been waiting for the government to give it a new president for more than four months. Ominously, the Naples garbage is piling up again.
Mr Berlusconi’s critics have reacted to the latest scandal with a fury that was not detectable last year. More importantly, his supporters are notably less keen to defend him. Mr Berlusconi’s equal-opportunities minister, Mara Carfagna, whose own relationship with Mr Berlusconi has long been the subject of gossip, dissociated herself from his remark about gays. The same day, two deputies renounced the PdL whip.
There is a widespread view in Italy that the scandal marks the start of an endgame.
Italy is better than Berlusconi.
