Veltroni actually went along with it – he thought that once he’d dumped the ‘Communists’ Berlusconi would treat him as his ‘loyal opposition’. He knows better now.

As for Fini, he’s 57 years old, he’s the second or third most powerful politician in Italy, and he’s not likely to lose that position for another four years (at least). I think if he was going to drop the mask and come out as a neo-Fascist he would have done it by now.

I really am sorry for deliberately misreading your sentence. I was too lazy to find the counterexamples of the past. Silvio will stick ‘communism’ to anything in his way – he knows the label is generally abhorred & old school enough in Italy to be vivid in most people’s minds. It’s his contribution to logic: almost everybody hates communism – if X is in my way & I won’t to get rid of it, I just say X is communist and be done with it. I do not think it speaks much for his opposition that they can’t undo the trick.

But I won’t defend Berlusconi. He’s there because everybody else is boring, some that mean well and some that do not mean well, and in the former some with good ideas & a lot with very bad ideas as well. But all boring and unapologetic for it, as if boring is the greater good, as if it’s bad to have something interesting to say.

What I do want to do is attack Fini because the guy is loathsome & does not mean well. The fact that he boringly avoids anything that can stick to him is not an asset, it’s what should sensitize us to the fallacy of the seemingly-less-extreme.

And I do stand by the opinion that Berlusconi does not have an ideology.

I do follow this stuff, and what I read tells me that Berlusconi is well to the Right of Fini, and has been for some time.

Surely Berlusconi hates Communism (I hate communism)

Oh please – do me the favour of reading the whole sentence. Communism for Berlusconi is a label to stick on any and all of his political opponents, including Dario Franceschini (ex-Christian Democrat) and Antonio Di Pietro (no known political affiliation before he formed his party, but generally pretty right-wing).

it’s not the first time they attack Berlusconi before an election
This time we could have entered Europe with more than the 40% of votes, which means more power within the PPE
Someone definitely didn’t like it
He was speaking with his Turkish counterpart during that phone call, that’s why he was late

@dsquared
thanks for the link
Had missed this pearl cause usually our journalists do not ask such intelligent questions [then they say Italian press is bad]
He answered to a direct question about the age of consent

@Katrine

he meant to say that he would never pay to have a woman cause he prefers to conquer them
Now since I assume that you’re a woman like me, don’t tell me it’s offensive please

Surely Berlusconi hates Communism (I hate communism). I don’t see why surrounding yourself with ideologists is show of ideology. He surrounded himself with Fini and he surrounded himself with Khadaffi. He even surrounded himself with the semblance of a good christian life! Only one thing he is very clear about: he does not pay for sex!

The reason why Berlusconi forces people to remain on life support against their own wish is not a sign of his deep felt convictions. It merely is his understanding that that is what is popular and more importantly even: it is what earns him the support of the organized political militants that are behind the fundamentalist catholics, the racists and the remnants of fascism.

The sad thing here are the Italians; and more specifically those pretending to be in opposition to Berlusconi from the left.

Also, Berlusconi’s lack of politics is easy to overstate. You don’t surround yourself with people like Bossi and Frattini if you’re really apolitical – and you certainly don’t make alliances with unrepentant neo-Fascists. He quite genuinely hates ‘Communism’ – meaning roughly anyone who’s on the Left, has ever been on the Left or is willing to ally with anyone who’s on the Left – and I don’t think it’s just because all those people hate him.

I can imagine how Berlusconi’s usage of “conquering” is disturbing, but I don’t think this applies to the romantic notion of a man wooing a woman, while she is playing hard to get for a while.

+ what novokant & Henri said re bread as one of the reasons for popular momentum (circus provided by Sr B personally – panis & penis?).

To generalise freely, the effect of political scandal (or the procession from allegation to revelation to scandal), unless so utterly wriggle-proof and unarguably inexcusable as to be almost mechanical in its progress, tends to be pretty variable and reflect what people want to believe/judge on the basis of other concerns (along with a host of other factors like desire of opponents to exploit it, ability to control the press etc.).

Blimey, Judge Dread eat your heart out. (To dispel any trace of humour: that’s a fairly obscure ska gag about long sentences.)

Chris – hey, it’s Chris Hanretty! Nice reviews for Modern Italy – it makes editing a lot easier when a reviewer can actually write. (I particularly liked the Landi.) Anyway, that calculation is deeply depressing, but somehow not surprising. But it doesn’t quite dislodge my image of Prodi as a long-game-playing tessitore in the Moro mould – can you imagine D’Alema holding Rutelli, Mastella, Bertinotti and di Pietro together for as long as two years, let alone Veltroni? I can’t find the quote now, but a Romanian(?) magazine asked Prodi the other month what he thought about the Unione in retrospect. He said he’d always thought it was a valuable initiative, and his judgment had been confirmed by the way that everything had fallen apart the moment it was dropped. I guess he’s off Veltroni’s Christmas card list.