Word: berlusconi
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...gaffe heard around the globe. Last November, just two days after Barack Obama's historic election victory, the world's collective jaw dropped when Silvio Berlusconi quipped that the next U.S. President was "young, handsome and even has a good tan." Though the Italian Prime Minister refused to apologize for the failed attempt at humor, Obama and his aides gave Berlusconi a pass. The incoming President was not going to be sidetracked by a diplomatic incident with a man already notorious as a loose cannon. Berlusconi kept his place that week on Obama's initial round of phone calls...
Strangely, it is Berlusconi who has not let the incident rest. He called his critics "imbeciles," saying the remark was meant as a compliment. "We'd all like to be tanned like Naomi Campbell and Obama," he said two weeks after the original one-liner. He has made other references to it in the months since. (See Berlusconi's worst gaffes...
...conventional wisdom in Italy, in both press and political circles, seems to be that it's just Berlusconi being Berlusconi. The latest quip got only passing notice from Italy's center-left opposition, which is more focused on Berlusconi's ongoing sex scandal. Even the leading leftist daily, La Repubblica, referred to the remarks as the latest "Berlusconi Show." (See pictures of Italy...
Unlike some of his political allies, Berlusconi has never seemed to suffer from mean-spirited racism. Still, his eagerness to continue cracking racial jokes shows how outdated he and a big chunk of Italian society are. The lack of outrage from ordinary Italians compounds the crime. (Read "The Berlusconi Tapes: 5 Ways to Evade the Scandal...
Milanese social psychologist Chiara Volpato recently wrote that Italy's women are fed up with Berlusconi's antics and their own boobalicious image and are preparing to revolt. In the Madonna-frescoed courthouse in Perugia, a city of churches and narrow lanes plastered with sacred images of mothers nursing holy babies, the professionalism of these Italian women is definitely on the line. They bear little resemblance to their pole-dancing sisters on Berlusconi's channels. They are absolutely fierce, and the defendant, popularly known as Foxy Knoxy, finds no pity among them...