It's Contagious

Three reasons I'd like to visit Italy:

1) I can kinda get by in the language.

2) The culture, the history, the food. (Sort of a 2a, 2b, and 2c there)

3) They can't give me too much shit when they have a leader like this:

In a campaign that has largely avoided pressing issues, Berlusconi managed to win what amounted to an endorsement from President Bush and a rare opportunity to speak before the U.S. Congress early this month. Although Bush is unpopular in Italy, Berlusconi has used his friendship with the president to prove his importance on the world stage.

And many Italians buy it. They laugh at him, or roll their eyes, but they also, begrudgingly or not, admire his successes. He has managed to portray his many legal troubles, including calls Friday for yet another indictment, as a plot by communist judges and prosecutors out to get him. Even his embarrassing comments he later blames on leftist journalists out to get him.

"He's a megalomaniac," said supporter Giuliano Ferrara, editor of the Il Foglio newspaper, which is partly owned by the Berlusconi empire. "But he's also a great victimist. He knows how to act like a victim."

Berlusconi, whose hair seems to grow thicker and darker by the day, has acknowledged having face-lifts. A short man pushing 70, he often wears makeup and heels and sports a George Hamilton tan. He is known for making poor-taste jokes that often insult or embarrass world leaders and for grabbing headlines with comments such as saying he would abstain from sex until the election and promising to sail to Tahiti if he lost. A former cruise ship singer married to an ex-actress, he plans to release a new CD of his songs ahead of the election.

"I am the Jesus Christ of politics," he told supporters over a dinner late last month.

"I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone."

And a few days before that, on a TV talk show: "We have worked a lot. Only Napoleon did more than me — but I am certainly taller than him."

Actually, the sailing to Tahiti thing sounds like win-win to me. But Italian politics sounds awfully American right now. (Right down to that Tahiti thing. Bush made a similar remark back in 2000.) A rich guy with no real thoughts runs on the I'm-With-Stupid ticket, achieves power, then spends all his time figuring out how best to remain in power, building a personality cult that, while not unversally effective, works for people dumb enough to fall for his okeydoke. My guess: Berlusconi will slither back into office again, allowing Italy to continue as a kleptocracy, just like us.

Bushism. Think of it as the political bird flu.