Prince of a Fellow

It would appear that in the opinion of the Italian prime minister, the only things that count for anything in life are wealth, entitlements, political power, and sexual gratification. Somewhere in there is the obvious; the gratuitous male appreciation of female pulchritude. Female beauty trumps intelligence, accomplishment, dedication to the public weal. Female enticement of male braggadocio in the bedroom is, according to this aged Lothario, another entitlement of wealth and power - and male prowess.

All accorded in heaping adulation to him, personally.

It troubles this great man that Italian courts are so incredibly unreasonable as to assert in their rulings that he is no different than any other man on the street. As regards not sex but rather criminal wrong-doing. That if Silvio Berlusconi - media titan, prime minister of Italy, playboy wannabe - indulges in criminal activity, he cannot invoke the privilege of immunity, because of who he is. He, like any other petty little crook with an absurdly huge attitude of entitlement, will have his day in court.

The law in Italy isn't, evidently, impressed by that age-old phrase: "Do you know who I am?"

The thing of it is, they do know. As does everyone else in Italy, whether repulsed or titillated by this man's excesses. Which can only lead the onlooker located elsewhere to wonder how he could possibly have been elected for the second time to lead the country? But then, it is the rare country whose citizens view their politicians with total respect for their whole-hearted commitment to the public weal. Those rare creatures for whom social propriety and zeal to commit to working on behalf of their countrymen, exhibiting the passion of political probity appear all too rare.

But even so, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is in a class all on his own. This is a class that has a single, risible dunce inhabiting it. One who cannot view a woman with respect, but who must, without any provocation other than his connoisseur's eye for physical beauty, comment insultingly on any woman's physical attributes. Or lack of, in his opinion. And it's really about that, that the women of Italy have finally mounted a protest against this man's pleasure in running roughshod over the sensibilities of fifty percent of his country's voters.

The mystery of it all is that Berlusconi, despite all his peccadilloes, his shameless bedroom antics, and political nonsense, his crooked dealings, still enjoys a 50% approval rating from the electorate. Perhaps it's time that Italy's women had a talk with their men. Italians appear to be accustomed to clownish politicians pursuing their tawdry goals.