One of the more entertaining subplots in this week's elections for the European parliament is what the Italian results will say about the country's continuing tolerance for Silvio Berlusconi, whose latest in an interminable line of scandals involves allegations that he had an affair with a busty teenage model. (As is usually the case, Berlusconi is blaming the media-in this instance, Rupert Murdoch- for fanning the flames.) The epic scale of Berlusconi's legacy of corruption is far too complex to address in a single blog post-or at least any that I'm willing to write today; if you're interested I suggest Alexander Stille's The Sack of Rome as a good starting place-but it would be the ultimate irony if Berlusconi, whose wealth was built in part by providing Italian television viewers with wall-to-wall jugs, is finally brought down by a single set of them. Unlikely, but one can hope. [Photo, taken in Soho, via True/Slant]
Thursday, June 4, 2009
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If Niccolo Machiavelli were to write that buffoon's story it would be called The Stupid Prince. What was Italy thinking when they elected this assfuck?
THREE times…
Hmmm... Married guy has inappropriate relationship with much younger woman, blames resulting press coverage on Rupert Murdoch...
Now where have I seen that before?
The NYTimes reports this morning that Berlusconi's evidently now attempting to get the Nobel Peace Prize for himself - the full ridiculousness of http://www.silvioperilnobel.it/ isn't really apparent unless you speak Italian, but the joy of stock photography is for everyone.
(I wish I'd kept the 200-page biography Berlusconi commissioned and delivered to every Italian mailbox when he was running in 2001 - at the time, I threw it away in disgust, but it was necessarily a hilarious piece of work, fawningly detailing his early career as a cruise-ship singer etc.
One of my theories on why he's so successful -- apart from total control of the media, vast wealth, the general sense that "they're all corrupt," and an Italian left which makes our Democratic party of the 80s look like a model of ruthless efficiency and unblinking unity -- is that when you tell people how amazing and wonderful you are over and over they might not come to believe it, but after a while they no longer stop to think about how ridiculous it is; it just becomes background noise to be ignored.
Didn't you promise us a screed on Berlusconi? I'm not demanding it today, but based on that comment? I'm demanding it sometime soon.
Also and sorry, I have to scoff at the mere intimation that Italians would give a fig about anyone having an affair with a busty teenaged model. Abbondanza!
Hate to disappoint you all, but it has a lot more to do with how Italians see Italy: how much they want to be part of the EU (thought that's basically out of their hands now): dealing with the hoades of immigrants that are flooding into every European country; surviving the economic crash, and realizing that their economy was based in Kleenex, as we all are: well, etc. etc. The worst part is that his asshole behavior is what gets him re-elected. Dumb but out there. The Jeff Koons of politics.
You illustrate this story with a picture of a billboard and make me look up the busty teenage model myself? What would Balk's Cock think?