It's probably the ultimate in schadenfreude to watch Silvio Berlusconi squirming as Italy's highest court struck down a law he and his cronies ginned up to provide him with immunity from prosecution while he is in office:
A day after Italy’s Constitutional Court struck down a law granting him immunity from prosecution, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi defiantly called the ruling “absurd” and said his government would “forge ahead calmly.” But now that he faces fresh prosecution on the corruption charges that have dogged him for decades, the normally charismatic and cheerful Mr. Berlusconi seemed anything but calm. In radio and television interviews, the prime minister, also under pressure from sex scandals and restiveness among his own center-right political allies, seemed so embattled that many Italian observers wondered if he was losing his grip — if not on the country then certainly on his temper.
Can you imagine the outrage if any US president - regardless of party affiliation - made the following comment:
Calling in to a television talk show on Wednesday, Mr. Berlusconi unleashed a highly unusual attack on the nation’s mild-mannered president, Giorgio Napolitano, 84. He accused the president, who is normally considered above the political fray, of stacking the court with leftist judges — remarks that prompted Mr. Napolitano to call a meeting on Thursday with the speakers of the House and Senate to help avert an institutional crisis.
When a guest on the same show, Rosy Bindi, a high-ranking member of Parliament from the Democratic Party and a former health minister, protested that Mr. Berlusconi’s attacks had undermined the authority of the office of the president, he told her curtly, “You are always more beautiful than intelligent.”
Ms. Bindi's response was sheer genius:
Ms. Bindi, 58 and one of the few women in Italian public life with gray hair, responded dryly, “Mr. Prime Minister, I am a woman who is not at your disposal.”
Berlusconi is noted for putting piedi in bocca. Indeed, there is a compilation of his ten worst gaffes here. This, however, may be the best Freudian slip since Dick Armey called Barney Frank, "Barney Fag":
Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, on Friday made an embarrassing gaffe when he said he had spent millions of euros on "judges" as part of an impassioned plea that he was the most persecuted man in history.
Of course he corrected himself, but one wonders. What is distressing about all this is that there are real issues that need to be addressed in Italy, but the focus appears to be on Berlusconi and not the issues, while an opposition that could be charitably described as feckless appears to be more interested in being an enabler. As the tenor of the coverage seems to indicate, don't expect anything to change. That may be the saddest news of all.
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