Arrivederci Silvio!
It seems as though the premiership of Mr. Berlusconi is in its final days, and it thus seems only appropriate, in light of his long and faithful service to the people of Italy, to blow a nice big fat raspberry. Ptoo!
Not that there are no downsides to his imminent departure, I suppose--the Economist will be deprived of their favorite whipping boy (and what a whipping boy! The proverbially perfect side-of-a-barn-sized, fat-assed, slow-moving, engorged-with-corruption target non plus ultra). And of course this will be sorta sad--it allowed them to preserve a thin varnish of the appearance of impartiality, to balance the whole "Three cheers for social darwinism!" baseline of nearly the entire rest of the magazine. But they could certainly be witheringly funny when they laid into him--a good reminder to try and not piss of the British if you can help it, as they have preserved in the English language a venomous potential we have largely permitted to atrophy. And with Silvio, they often had occasion to test theirs out.
This is not about the massive corruption, by the way. Or the slimy alliance with the LePen-esque Northern League, or the cheap, opportunistic glomming onto the Iraq war in the face of 90%+ public opposition. These are merely garden-variety acts of political debauchery, and my dislike of the little #&%* runs far deeper. In order to properly loathe him you have to appreciate what he has done, what he is. Image a svelter, vainer, dumber version of Dick Cheney. Now imagine him owning--outright--CBS, ABC, CNN, FOX, and C-SPAN--and appointing the entire board of PBS with zero congressional oversight. It is a massive tribute to his own venality, concupiscence and sheer stupidity that he ever managed to lose another election.
As Hunter S. Thompson said of Nixon, we shall not see his like soon again. Thank God.
Not that there are no downsides to his imminent departure, I suppose--the Economist will be deprived of their favorite whipping boy (and what a whipping boy! The proverbially perfect side-of-a-barn-sized, fat-assed, slow-moving, engorged-with-corruption target non plus ultra). And of course this will be sorta sad--it allowed them to preserve a thin varnish of the appearance of impartiality, to balance the whole "Three cheers for social darwinism!" baseline of nearly the entire rest of the magazine. But they could certainly be witheringly funny when they laid into him--a good reminder to try and not piss of the British if you can help it, as they have preserved in the English language a venomous potential we have largely permitted to atrophy. And with Silvio, they often had occasion to test theirs out.
This is not about the massive corruption, by the way. Or the slimy alliance with the LePen-esque Northern League, or the cheap, opportunistic glomming onto the Iraq war in the face of 90%+ public opposition. These are merely garden-variety acts of political debauchery, and my dislike of the little #&%* runs far deeper. In order to properly loathe him you have to appreciate what he has done, what he is. Image a svelter, vainer, dumber version of Dick Cheney. Now imagine him owning--outright--CBS, ABC, CNN, FOX, and C-SPAN--and appointing the entire board of PBS with zero congressional oversight. It is a massive tribute to his own venality, concupiscence and sheer stupidity that he ever managed to lose another election.
As Hunter S. Thompson said of Nixon, we shall not see his like soon again. Thank God.
posted by Senix at 6:53 PM
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