August 01, 2003

Io accuso

Posted by Henry

Just a quick note; I’ve dumped on the Economist a couple of times in the last few weeks, so I should say that it has an excellent open letter to Silvio Berlusconi on its website today, with a detailed dossier on the various legal controversies that Mr. Berlusconi has become embroiled in. I especially recommend the discussion of Berlusconi’s attempts to smear Romano Prodi to Glenn Reynolds, who may wish to revisit this snarky and unpleasant little post from a couple of months back.

This is something I hope to blog about at greater length sometime in the next few days, as the story develops. Megan McArdle speculates that the Economist’s dossier will cause “a lot of consternation in Italy.” Sadly, I suspect that it won’t have much political effect. Berlusconi’s disinformation machine which has already described the Economist as a Communist publication (sic) after it published a previous article on his shady dealings, and gotten away with it, seems to be gearing itself up again. His company’s lawyers are describing the Economist article as “more of an affront to the true facts and journalistic decency than to the honorable Mr. Berlusconi.” Since Berlusconi has a lock on both public and private tv, his people will be able to spin the dossier as an attack on Italy’s national pride rather than the damning litany of facts that it is. More on this as it develops.

Posted on August 1, 2003 11:54 PM UTC
Comments

I’d never realised it before, but now SB has pointed it out — yes, The Economist, that ‘communist publication’/

Oh…oh..oh dear

Posted by Matthew · August 2, 2003 01:26 AM

A foreseeable side-effect of the smear war between Prodi and Berlusconi is to stoke up pressure in Europe for an elected EU presidency in place of the present arrangment for a rotating presidency with the head of government from each EU member state serving 6 month stints before the presidency passes on to the next country in line.

Posted by Bob · August 3, 2003 12:00 AM
Followups

→ Berlusconi Troubles.
Excerpt: Some sectors of the American right seem to have adopted Silvio Berlusconi as one of their heros thanks to his support of the Iraq War. This isa very foolish attitude to have toward a very bad man, for all the...Read more at Matthew Yglesias
→ The Economist is communist?.
Excerpt: According to a post over at Crooked Timber, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi thinks so....Read more at Bound in a Nutshell

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.