Berlusconi Snatches Back Power in Italy

[Wretched Excess]

another pro-american leader voted into power in europe.   this dog isn't going to hunt for the democrats in
november like it did in 2004.

Berlusconi Snatches Back Power in Italy

ROME — Silvio Berlusconi, the idiosyncratic billionaire who already dominates much of Italy’s public life, snatched back political power in elections that ended Monday, heading a center-right coalition certain to make him prime minister for a third term.

 But with a bad economy and frustration high that Italy has lost ground to the rest of Europe, was unclear whether they voted for Mr. Berlusconi out of affection or, as many experts said, as the least bad choice after the nation weathered two years of inaction from the fractured center-left government.

While Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition won a convincing majority in both houses of Parliament, the victory came with much help from the Northern League, which advocates a federal system to favor the more prosperous north. The party caused Mr. Berlusconi’s first government in 1994 to collapse — a history that center-left leaders made clear in defeat.

“A season of opposition now begins against a majority that will have a hard time keeping together things that are difficult to keep together,” said Walter Veltroni, the former mayor of Rome and leader of the Democratic Party who ran against Mr. Berlusconi. “I don’t know how long this majority will last.”

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[Chris_]

Ahh, I see we aren't the only ones stuck with choosing the least bad.

[Wretched Excess]

Ahh, I see we aren't the only ones stuck with choosing the least bad.

what I took to be the larger point is that the MSM played berlusconi's defeat was blared all over
the headlines as somehow symbolic that bush's foreign policy was a faillure, the war was a failure,
and he was personally a failure.

I am sure they will play it with the appropriate positive light now that it has gone the other way.

[Crazy Horse]

Ahh, I see we aren't the only ones stuck with choosing the least bad.

what I took to be the larger point is that the MSM played berlusconi's defeat was blared all over
the headlines as somehow symbolic that bush's foreign policy was a faillure, the war was a failure,
and he was personally a failure.

I am sure they will play it with the appropriate positive light now that it has gone the other way.

Don't hold your breath

[Wretched Excess]

Ahh, I see we aren't the only ones stuck with choosing the least bad.

what I took to be the larger point is that the MSM played berlusconi's defeat was blared all over
the headlines as somehow symbolic that bush's foreign policy was a faillure, the war was a failure,
and he was personally a failure.

I am sure they will play it with the appropriate positive light now that it has gone the other way.

Don't hold your breath

silly of me.  I forgot the , didn't I?

[Wretched Excess]

Ahh, I see we aren't the only ones stuck with choosing the least bad.

the guy he beat is a communist, as I recall. 

[Chris_]

I heard about Berlusconi's re-election on the news... I didn't think it was this big

A Landslide
Huge, perhaps historic, victory for Berlusconi's "Popolo della liberta' " (which translates a bit awkwardly as "the people of liberty;" maybe it's better to call it "the freedom folks"). It's considerably worse than AP lets on. Berlusconi defeated Walter Veltroni's "Democratic Party" by a full 9 points in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. And since the Italian electoral system gives a bonus to the winning side, the margins are very big and stable: 340 to 241 in the Chamber (with another 36 for a couple of small parties), and 167 to 137 in the Senate (with 5 to three little parties), which was expected to be a photo finish. Eighty percent voted, down about three percent from last time.

The big news is that the Communists are gone, for the first time since the end of the Second World War. Really gone. They didn't win a single seat in either chamber. A lot of famous faces will vanish from Parliament, and it is even possible, although unlikely, that some of the comrades will be forced to join the working class

[Lord Undies]

Leave it to the AP to use "Snatches Back Power" in the opening.  It just reeks with the impression that the "Power" was not Berlusconi's to take.  It had to be "Snatched".   Is there no end to subtle propaganda?  It is one of the most dangerous forms of propaganda. 

[Baruch Menachem]

I liked him.  I hope he does well.

He did have the really neat effect of changing Italian politics in a big way.  The parties that ran the place forever and mismanaged it horrible are now all gone away.  I don't believe for a second that the new parties will be all that much better, but they are different, and that is a positive.