"You have an ambassador that has cachet, and the Italians like that. They like that [they’re] important enough to us that you’re going to come into our town, on your big boat..."

"... and pay respect to us and have us in your home. That’s what I hear from people."

Tilman Fertitta, Trump's ambassador to Italy, quoted in "Trump’s ambassador to Italy is flaunting his wealth, and it’s dividing Italians/With a net worth of $11.1 billion, Tilman Fertitta, a great-grandson of Sicilian immigrants, is one of the wealthiest people ever to be a U.S. ambassador" (WaPo gift link). 

WaPo explains: "Italy has perhaps a different relationship with wealth than other European countries such as Britain, where aspiration can be viewed as a personality flaw. This is the land where Gucci and Versace helped define loud luxury, and where the political cult of billionaire playboy Silvio Berlusconi once reigned. But even here, the Italian elite can see American-style displays of wealth as violations of good taste. And while some on the political left have happily sipped champagne on his yacht, others have sharply criticized the tour."

Fertitta offers advice about how to deal with Trump: "What I’ve said is, 'You don’t want to get in a verbal volleyball match with Donald Trump; because he’s relentless, and he’s going to win." And: "If he’s not giving you a hard time, then you’re not worth the time of day."

"Thus, the racial laws are the worst fault of Mussolini, who, in so many other aspects, did good."

"It is difficult now to put oneself in the shoes of who was making decisions back then.... Certainly the (Italian) government then, fearing that German power would turn into a general victory, preferred to be allied with Hitler's Germany rather than oppose it."

Berlusconi on Mussolini.

Later he said he "regretted" not conditioning his remarks on the "condemnation of dictatorships."

Berlusconi, sentenced to prison for 4 years and barred from public office for 3 years.

A strange combination of terms of years, as if one could serve in public office while yet in prison. Hard to believe the man will actually end up in prison.

Angelino Alfano, the head of Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, said the conviction was "unexpected and incomprehensible" and "the umpteenth" attack by a biased judiciary on Berlusconi.

To control you're overflowing sympathy for Silvio, here's a slideshow of beautiful women he has had. Also: "'Bunga bunga' parties were dignified soirées."

Silvio Berlusconi: "Last night I had a queue outside the door of the bedroom..."

"... There were 11 … I only did eight because I could not do it anymore... Listen, all the beds are full here... this lot won't go home, even at gunpoint."

Don't cry for me Qaddafi/Obama...

Look at what Drudge has going on right now.

First you've got the 2 leaders — Qaddafi and Obama — both frowning.



Qaddafi says "No surrender!" And Obama says — Drudge is paraphrasing — "OK, let's do it before the game." That is, he's surrendering to pressure and doing his speech before the Packers/Saints game.

Next, we get a symphony of hands: the painting behind Berlusconi (who's got a good rhyme for Italy — in English, anyway), Madonna (whose movie about the wife of a former king of England is apparently shitty), Hillary (who's happy in Paris), Margaret Thatcher (presumably in England), Venus Williams (like Thatcher, she's ill), and Cher (gripping the shoulder of her soon-to-be-dancing, former-daughter Chaz):



Now let's interpret this symphony. One clue is the link under Madonna, after the reference to "Death in Venice": "BOOK SHOCK: Evita 'kept Nazi treasure taken from Jews'...." Of course, Madonna played Evita in the movie "Evita," and if there's one thing we think about when we think about the musical "Evita," it's the hands in the air gesture that goes with the song "Don't Cry for Me Argentina."

Evita, of course, was the wife of President, and, of course, so was Hillary. Now, clearly, Drudge is picturing Hillary that way for a reason.

The hands make a graceful composition, guiding our eyes from left to right. The woman in the painting appears to hold a glowing globe in her hand. Madonna, her hand in a similar upcurved position, blows the kiss that symbolically had been place on her fingertips, and Hillary opens her arms to receive, receive, receive.

A step down, we see the elderly, elegant Thatcher reaching out, palm toward us, grasping nothing, and perhaps there is nothing left in her head as she drifts into oblivion. She is dappled with jewelry: earrings, necklace, brooch. The missing item of jewelry is a ring, and we shift our eyes slightly to right and see a ring. It's on the hand of Venus Williams, whose fingers are curved inward, grasping not a glowing globe, but a neon-colored ball. Venus is sick! She has Sjögren's syndrome. Take one more step and it's Cher, her fingers delicately curved over the shoulder of the offspring she's fiercely defending with Tweets.

Where's Huma Abedin? What should she do?

The Daily News headlines: "Huma Abedin is notably absent from husband Anthony Weiner's tearful sexting confession."

Huma Abedin wasn't standing by her man....

A top aide to Secretary of State Clinton, Abedin issued no statements of support for her embattled husband. She was a no-show Monday at two public State Department events.

"I love my wife very much, and we have no intention of splitting up over this," Weiner insisted. "I love her very much, and she loves me."

No intention of splitting up over this. Those last 2 words jumped out at me.

Several political pros cheered her absence yesterday.

"In general, it's very difficult for women constituents to look at the grieving wife up there," said Democratic consultant George Arzt. "It's bad PR."

The better move for Weiner, Arzt said, was "to look like he can take it all by himself and stand up there."

University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato took to Twitter with a similar view: "At least Weiner didn't make his wife come out and gaze lovingly at him."

Ha ha. He's a PR expert! He's not advising Weiner in advance. He's dealing with the facts he's stuck with. This is what the PR man says when the wife isn't there. What did the Democratic consultants say when Silda Spitzer stood by her man?

The New York Post headlines: "Weiner & wife worlds apart/:Snake slithers when Huma is globetrotting with Hill."

As the "body woman" to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Huma Abedin is tasked with accompanying the former first lady on diplomatic globetrotting missions.

Weiner, it seems, uses the timing of her foreign affairs to pursue domestic ones online.

For instance, last month, while Abedin and Clinton were in Rome meeting with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Weiner was chatting up Texas nursing student Meagan Broussard.

I wonder what conversations Huma is having with Hillary — the world's most famous stander by of her man.

The political power couple met while Abedin was on the campaign trail during Clinton's 2008 White House bid. By 2009, they were engaged....

Didn't Abedin know the kind of man she was marrying? He was 45, and had never married previously. As Hillary's close assistant, she had to be sophisticated about the ways of oversexed, extroverted, narcissistic husbands. What was the marriage supposed to be, anyway? They were conspicuously a glamorous "power couple," for public purposes, but what was he allowed to do in private? What were their understandings? At the press conference yesterday, Weiner said that she asked how he could be so dumb, which made me think what mattered most was that people found out and she was shamed and embarrassed. Was it the public image that mattered, or was it to be a loyal, deeply bonded marriage in private?

Unlike Bill and Hillary, Weiner and Abedin have only been married a year, and they have no children. And the husband's career is deeply compromised at this point. They're not going to become the Democratic Party's next Bill and Hillary. The glamorous power couple is defunct. What happens to the private Tony and Huma?

Will Abedin divorce Weiner?
	Yes.
	No, she'll stand by her man.
	Divorce? She should be able to get an annulment!
pollcode.com free polls

Hitting the Prime Minister with a cathedral.

Silvio Berluscioni took "a small, metal souvenir replica of the Doumo di Milano" to the face.

What Berlusconi and Ahmadinejad said about the Obama victory.

The L.A. Times reports:

Berlusconi, who has a history of controversial remarks, said the relative youth of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, 43, and Obama, 47, should make it easier for Moscow and Washington to work together.

Then, smiling, he said through an interpreter, "I told the president that [Obama] has everything needed in order to reach deals with him: He's young, handsome and even tanned."...

Berlusconi, 72, later defended the remark, calling it "a great compliment. . . . If they have the vice of not having a sense of humor, worse for them"....

Berlusconi said the remark was meant to be "cute" and he lashed out at those who disagreed, calling them "imbeciles, of which there are too many."

Berlusconi is getting a lot of criticism in Italy. He's embarrassing. In America, do we care about "tan" jokes? I note that the WaPo fashion columnist Robin Givhan wrote, about Michelle Obama: "[T]he implied message is unmistakable: I am neither subversive nor threatening. I am not some scary 'other.' I am Camelot with a tan." Givhan is herself African American, which gives her more leeway, and she's imagining someone else's implied statement.

Stepping back from the focus on calling a black person "tanned," we should see that Berlusconi was making a sexual joke. To say Obama can make deals because "He's young, handsome and even tanned" is to say that he can be seductive, and Berlusconi was picturing a "deal" between Obama and Medvedev. Medvedev, who was standing right there -- and not reacting -- looks like this:



So, you get the picture of what Berlusconi thinks is "cute." (How do you say "cute" in Italian?)

As for Ahmadinejad, who is decidedly not cute:

“I congratulate you for attracting the majority of votes in the election,” Mr. Ahmadinejad wrote in his message, an Iranian news agency, ISNA, reported. “As you know, opportunities that are bestowed upon humans are short lived,” he wrote, adding that he hoped Mr. Obama would make the most of the opportunity....

“People in the world expect war-oriented policies, occupation, bullying, deception and intimidation of nations and imposing discriminatory policies on them and international affairs, which have evoked hatred toward American leaders, to be replaced by ones advocating justice, respect for human rights, friendship and noninterference in other countries’ affairs"...

Short lived, eh?

ADDED: Italy is in a tizzy:

Many Italian newspapers gave the comment nearly as much front-page attention as Mr. Obama’s victory itself. The journalist Curzio Maltese wrote in the center-left La Repubblica that “bookmakers wouldn’t even take bets” on how long it would take for Mr. Berlusconi to let slip another of his famous gaffes. “Mr. Berlusconi never fails to live up to our worst expectations.”

Mr. Maltese added that just when Mr. Obama’s victory was “inspiring billions of people” to consider “democracy, the most extraordinary triumph of humanity after centuries of bloodshed and intolerance,” Mr. Berlusconi instead contributed “a miserable, vulgar and racist remark, for which he didn’t even have the courage to take responsibility or the dignity to apologize.”

A billionaire populist, Mr. Berlusconi excels at deflating such lofty talk. He said that his remark had been “a compliment” and that his critics lacked irony. “If you want to get a degree in idiocy, I won’t stop you,” La Repubblica quoted him as saying. “I say whatever I think.”

How George Bush entertains the Italian Prime Minister at the White House.

1. Tell him about our 2 Italian-American Supreme Court Justices, Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

2. Call attention to our Italian-American Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and joke -- in Nancy's presence -- that "Speaker of the House" is English for "prima donna."

3. Have some Four Seasons impersonators sing "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Walk Like a Man," etc.

4. Jump onto the stage, with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in tow, and say "Frankie, come on up," have Frankie Valli, who's been in the audience enjoying his own tunes, come on up and give the Prez a big hug.

5. Make assurances that the world financial crisis will be solved.

(Link.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Reader_iam thinks this is the appropriate video for this post:



I had some questions. Was Divine descended from Italians? (I think not.) But I see the clip has an "Italo" tag, so, okay.

The "boiled babies" remark.

So Berlusconi insulted Mao? Find something more substantial to get mad about -- even if you are celebrating the "Year of Italy."

[Berlusconi's] comments on Maoist China were first made at a rally on Sunday.

"I am accused of having said that the [Chinese] Communists used to eat children," he said.

"But read The Black Book of Communism and you will discover that in the China of Mao, they did not eat children, but had them boiled to fertilise the fields."

He tried to calm the furore on Wednesday, telling Italian TV: "It was questionable irony, I admit it, because this joke is questionable. But I did not know how to restrain myself."

"It was questionable irony, I admit it, because this joke is questionable. But I did not know how to restrain myself" -- I love that. Our politicians should try that apology format: I did not know how to restrain myself.

The 86-year old poet encounters the Italian police and gets creative.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti searched out the house his immigrant father was born in, in a small town near Milan:

I rang the bell and tried to see into the lobby. People came to the door and were very hostile. They called the police. A car zooms up, and two poliziotti jumped out and asked for my papers and kept me standing there for three-quarters of an hour.

It's not quite Bush's fault.

They mistook you for a burglar?

There's a climate of fear and paranoia since 9/11, and in this country it was generated by Bush.

But you can't possibly blame President Bush for fear and paranoia in northern Italy.

It's the same with Silvio Berlusconi in Italy. Is it true that Bush believes that anyone caught reading books should be banned from government?

That's such a flaky, California thing to say.

I made it up.

Ah, poetry! You can say what you want!

I can't believe this artist.

BBC reports:

An art work purportedly made from excess fat from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been sold for $18,000 (£9,862).

Switzerland-based artist Gianni Motti claims to have bought the fat from a clinic where the leader had a liposuction operation performed....

"I came up with the idea of because soap is made of pig fat, and I thought how much more appropriate it would be if people washed their hands using a piece of Berlusconi," Motti told Welwoche magazine.

We're asked to think the artist thought this up entirely independently of the widely known film/book "Fight Club." What do you think that bar of soap in Brad's hand is?

Whoever bought the thing is a fool for buying conceptual art where the concept is already extremely well known from a previously existing art work.

About that Live 8 conference call.

Here's what Frank J. at IMAO has to say about the Live 8 conference call I wrote about earlier today. And here's John Hinderaker (who worked on setting up the conference call with Joe Trippi):

To say that I was impressed would be an understatement. Geldof is an extraordinarily knowledgable guy. Equally important, he is not soft-headed about Africa's problems. He emphasizes free markets and the need for political reform, which should be, and according to Geldof will be, a condition of the assistance that he advocates. Another important point, I think, is that he talks eloquently not only about the appalling conditions in some areas of Africa, but also about the striking progress being made in areas where political tyranny or upheaval have made such progress impossible.

And here's Citizen Smash:

[Geldof]’s devoted his life to fighting hunger and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, and it shows – Sir Bob really knows his stuff. And while he is clearly trying to reach out to a wide spectrum of people, he didn’t pull any punches when it came to criticizing those who waste, embezzle, or squander public money (at one point, he casually mentioned that both Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy and French President Jacques Chirac would be in jail for corruption if they weren’t leaders of their respective nations). I was impressed.

Here’s the clincher: Geldof wasn’t asking for donations. He admits that food aid and even debt cancellation, while helpful, are of limited utility in the long run. Instead, he’s asking us to start a converstation about how to stimulate long-term development in Sub-Saharan Africa. “This isn’t Live Aid 2,” the website reads, “LIVE 8 is about justice not charity.”

Captain Ed simulblogged the phone call. Lots of details there, including the fact that Geldof was surprisingly positive about President Bush and Americans in general.

It struck me that Geldof, like Bush, saw establishing democracy as central to solving problems. And there was none of the Bush-related cynicism one normally expects to hear. How can Bush take the lead pushing for democracy in Africa when so many people in other G8 countries are derisive about his efforts in Iraq? No such thing was said. Geldof acted as if such a thought did not exist. He thinks Bush is perfectly positioned to take the lead.

Chapomatic highlights Geldof's statement: "Read your Adam Smith." Geldof was big on free trade and critical of all sorts of protectionism.

Here's Charles Johnson's post:

Despite my skepticism (rock stars with causes, oh boy), I was impressed with Geldof’s knowledge of the situation, and by his group’s ideas to make sure that whatever aid is generated will not simply be pocketed by corrupt African dictators. Ultimately, the vision seems to be to promote freedom and reform on the African continent. Geldof said, “Robert Mugabe will not be included.”

Like Johnson, I was impressed at how Geldof framed his presentation to be compelling to persons across the political spectrum.

Sorry I haven't written more about this today, but I will keep up on this story in the future.