Italy
ITALY’S YOUNG PRIME MINISTER IN A HURRY, New Yorker, March 6, 2014
Sixty-three governments in sixty-eight years, with twenty-seven different Prime Ministers—so why should we care that Italy has a new government, with yet another Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi? It is understandable if observers find the dizzying nature of Italian politics exhausting and pointless. It can seem like a merry-go-round: the people on the painted horses change,…
Continue readingAug. 8, Berlusconi trying to change the subject
There is a famous saying among defense attorneys: when the facts are against you argue the law; when the law is against you, argue the facts; when both the facts and the law are against you, yell! That’s what we’re seeing after the conviction of Berlusconi in his tax fraud case: much yelling, as a…
Continue readingAug 4, Threats of “civil war.”
What is astonishing is that Berlusconi’s supporters scream and shout about democracy being subverted, magistrates ignoring voters. But of course they never talk about the actual facts and evidence of the cases against Berlusconi. The fact that three different courts have found incontrovertible evidence that completely phony transactions were invented in order to inflate the…
Continue readingAug. 2, Justice Being Negotiated
It worries me greatly that — as soon as Berlusconi’s conviction was handed down — his fate has become a subject of political negotiation. Nothing in Italian justice is ever clear. The court rather than taking final responsibility for banning Berlusconi for public life has kicked the can back to Milan for “revision” and recalculation…
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