The Worst PM in Europe?
While on the subject of the worst president in American history, I can’t resist a post on possibly the worst current PM in Europe and the most colorful, longest-lasting, controversial, Prime Minister in post-WWII Italy, Silvio Berlusconi. Here’s a guy who owns Mediaset (the largest private Italian TV and Radio empire) while at the same time using his office to interfere with the public media outlets (called RAI). As PM he has defended Mussolini, has defended Putin’s actions in Chechnya and in arresting the head of Yukos, has said that Western Civilization is superior to Muslim, has invited foreign investment in Italy because they have beautiful secretaries, has, at his debut as the rotating president of the EU, suggested that a German MEP would be fitting for the role of Nazi concentration camp leader, has attacked the Euro, has insulted Finnish food, has compared himself to Jesus, has been convicted of corruption but had the statute of limitation changed so he got off, has had another Italian law changed so he could build his own sprawling villa on Sardegna, and has, most recently, claimed that the Chinese have boiled babies...
If the polls hold, it looks as if the Italian people on April 9-10 may finally take a cue from a certain similar looking Italian-American jurist and send him and his Forza Italia party the following message:
posted by Paul @ 1:49 PM
2 Comments:
Paul, a nice list of egomaniacal gaffes. But you might add the role of Italian intelligence under SB in forging the infamous Niger yellowcake documents and getting them passed off to the US and the Brits. We may not ever know if SB was directly involved, but the forgeries his government produced certainly were convenient given his efforts to ingratiate himself with Bush on the Iraq invasion.
Yes, so many things, such little space. Berlusconi added another priceless gem to his resume just yesterday. Apparently miffed at the polls showing that Prodi was up by at least 5%, B said: "Sono coglioni che votano a sinistra" -- Those who are voting on the left are "coglioni". The latter is hard word to translate into English; it's a cross between an idiot and asshole and definitely not in keeping with the sort of decorum one would expect of the head of state.
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