Regular read­ers know that I don’t like to get too per­sonal within the con­fines of this blog-​like entity. But I won’t hes­i­tate to con­fess that one of the found­ing arti­cles of my faith is that the state of the world is, as ever, the bane of sane men everywhere.

Today’s proof? Pres­i­dent Bush had to apol­o­gize to Silvio Berlus­coni yes­ter­day for telling the truth:

The Hokkaido G8 meet­ing has pro­duced a diplo­matic faux pas of unprece­dented pro­por­tions. Now George W. Bush has had to apol­o­gise to Silvio Berlus­coni and to the Ital­ian people. But why? To find out, you merely have to glance at Mr. Berlusconi’s biog­ra­phy in the press kit issued by the White House to accred­ited journalists.

“Berlus­coni was one of the most con­tro­ver­sial lead­ers in the his­tory of a coun­try known for gov­ern­men­tal cor­rup­tion and vice”, the pro­file points out. “Pri­mar­ily a busi­ness­man with mas­sive hold­ings and influ­ence in inter­na­tional media, he was regarded by many as a polit­i­cal dilet­tante who gained his high office only through use of his con­sid­er­able influ­ence on the national media until he was forced out of office in 2006”. But the press kit biog­ra­phy does not stop there. “Hated by many but respected by all at least for his bella figura (per­sonal style) and the sheer force of his will, Berlus­coni has par­layed his busi­ness acumen and influ­ence into a per­sonal empire that has resulted in Italy’s longest-​running gov­ern­ment ever and in his becom­ing the country’s wealth­i­est man”. The biog­ra­phy notes even that as a boy, Mr Berlus­coni “was already earn­ing an income by orga­niz­ing puppet shows for which he would then charge admis­sion” and that while the future prime min­is­ter of Italy was study­ing law in Milan, he “sold vacuum clean­ers, worked as a singer on a cruise ship, took por­trait pho­tographs, and did other stu­dents’ home­work for a fee”. The White House is believed to have copied the Berlus­coni biog­ra­phy from the Ency­clo­pe­dia of World Biog­ra­phy, which was last updated a month ago.

(Source: Cor­riere della Sera)