Newsweek: tollerabili ma nemmeno troppo

Il settimanale statunitense scrive dei leader scomodi ma tollerabili per Wasghington, e immancabilmente c’è anche il premier italiano i cui pregi non è che siano proprio così eclatanti.
The Leaders America Hates to Love | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com

What America likes about him: During the Bush years, Berlusconi was America’s most trusted ally in continental Europe. Unlike his counterparts in Germany and France, he has rarely voiced criticism of U.S. policy in public. In 2003, despite strong opposition from the Italian public, he sent a mission of Italian troops to support the American-led war in Iraq.

What exasperates the U.S.: The 72-year-old prime minister is a three-ring circus. He leads a tabloid-worthy party life replete with one sex scandal after another. The latest orgy at his Sardinian villa even implicated the former Czech prime minister, making him a menace to his allies and embarrassing Italians (who, nonetheless, have voted him into office thrice). He wooed a convention of lawyers by plugging his country’s “beautiful secretaries,” and, following the election of Obama last year, he told the press that Americans had chosen a “young, handsome, and sun-tanned” president. The prime minister has also made absurd comparisons between his popularity and that of Jesus Christ and Napoleon.