BEHIND BERLUSCONI BROUHAHA

First among billionaires: Silvio Berlusconi is Italy's richest man, its prime minister and foreign minister. He is a populist with endless access to television - after all, he owns most of it, along with slices of virtually every other Italian business (James Fox, September 28, 2002, The Guardian)

Berlusconi's election in May 2001 caused jitters throughout social democratic circles in Europe - much greater than Le Pen's success in France or the rise of rightwing extremism across Europe. Berlusconi, after all, had actually come to power, and with a big majority, thanks to the unpleasant allies in his rightwing coalition: the "post-fascist" National Alliance, under Gianfranco Fini, and the Northern League, headed by the foul-talking Umberto Bossi, whose party was described in April in a Council of Europe report as "racist and xenophobic". Both are now ministers in the cabinet. [...]

For public consumption, Berlusconi said, "I never intended to be a politician, but out of love for Italy I felt I had to save it from the left, which is built around the former communist party." [...]

Berlusconi's friend Ferrara says, "Either it will be the Piazza Loreto [where Mussolini's body was hanged upside down] or a happy ending, and I think that, if he achieves only 10% of what he promised, Mr B's is the classic happy ending."

In case anyone hadn't figured it out yet, all the Berlusconi kerfuffle is really just a matter of the European hard Left's angst about a resurgent continental conservatism. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 3, 2003 1:48 PM