The Apologist

‘ITALIAN prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was yesterday gracious enough to deign to speak to the press about some hairy German he was supposed to have offended earlier this week.

I blame the Jews

‘I very much regret having to apologise for calling one of your tree-huggers a Nazi,’ he said in a phone call to his German counterpart, Gerhard Schroder.

‘However, I realise that I don’t yet own every media outlet in Europe and, until the day I do, I should be more careful about what I say.

‘Of course, I never meant to compare Herr Schulz with a Nazi camp commandant – he clearly couldn’t organise a shower party in Auchwitz.

‘What I intended to say was that an Italian producer I know is making a film on Nazi concentration camps and I think Herr Schulz would make a good corpse.’

And so Signor Berlusconi expertly defused the diplomatic row that followed his ironic – and wonderfully amusing – remarks about German MEP Martin Schulz.

In the interests of balance, we should tell you that some of the communist elements of the fourth estate, such as the Guardian and Independent, have tried to land a blow on the beloved European president.

The latter even betrayed its ignorance of European affairs by calling Signor Berlusconi’s witticism ‘an extraordinary gaffe’, while the former describes him as ‘a man of vanity, greed, vindictiveness and secrecy’.

However, other media outlets were quick to come to the Italian PM’s defence.

Rai Uno called Signor Berlusconi ‘a new Augustus’; Rai Due thought it the best political joke since Iain Duncan Smith; Rai Tre praised him for making the trains run on time; Rai Quattro commended his full head of hair…

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Posted: 4th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink