Miscellanea - Rubrica d'attualita`

October 20, 2001

ROME JOURNAL

A Bush Admirer Longs to Join America's A-List

By MELINDA HENNEBERGER

OME, Oct. 19 — Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has never made a state secret of his political crush on the American president, George W. Bush.

Or of his disappointment when Mr. Bush did not think to put Italy on the list of countries, including Britain, France and Canada, that he thanked for their support on the day the bombing of Afghanistan began. (Mr. Berlusconi, who is famous for taking his politics personally, was said to have been beside himself.) While the leaders of A-list allies got calls from Mr. Bush, Mr. Berlusconi had to hear about the American-led military action from Vice President Dick Cheney.

This week, after some prodding from the Italian ambassador to Washington, Ferdinando Salleo, Mr. Berlusconi was at last received at the White House.

"You can see, when you look at a man and a woman together, or at two men, if they're in touch," said Mr. Berlusconi's spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, who was along on the trip. Mr. Bush and Mr. Berlusconi, he reported, "have that look of being in touch."

After returning to Italy, Mr. Berlusconi promptly announced that a pro-American rally would be held here on Nov. 10 — an idea widely criticized by the right as well as the left.

Mr. Berlusconi apparently feels otherwise, after a state visit to the United States that many in the Italian press found woundingly short on pomp.

He has strategic reasons to bond with Mr. Bush. "He feels left out with Social Democrats in charge" across most of Europe, one Western diplomat noted, "and this is one way to counterbalance that."

He is also under fire for his recent comment that Western civilization is superior to Islam. Today, protesters pelted Mr. Berlusconi's car with eggs as he arrived at a European Union summit meeting in Belgium, whose foreign minister recently said on television that he would give Mr. Berlusconi a zero, on a scale of 1 to 10, for his leadership since the Sept. 11 attacks.

With Europe so hostile to him, no wonder Mr. Berlusconi seeks solace in America. La Repubblica reported that, "George Bush finally made the time to meet the Italian premier, who would have liked to have been greeted with far more solemnity." Corriere della Sera ran a cartoon of Mr. Berlusconi reciting Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" to Mr. Bush.

"It's a one-way relationship," said James Walston, a professor of political science at the American University of Rome. "It's embarrassing."

One reason for the low-key reception in Washington, of course, was precisely Mr. Berlusconi's recent comments about the West and Islam.

In some ways, Mr. Berlusconi's frustration is not that new. Italy is the world's sixth-largest economy and a sophisticated Western democracy, but because of its history of revolving-door governments, it has had difficulty being taken with the seriousness and respect it feels it deserves.

After Mr. Berlusconi, who is Italy's richest man, was not invited to a meeting of French, British and German leaders just before today's summit meeting, he showed how much he minded. At a news conference, he said he could not have fit the meeting into his schedule anyway, because he had a previous engagement with center-right leaders from Spain, Austria, and Luxembourg.

Of that group, he boasted that he was "the leader of the most important country."

Mr. Walston said that for both Mr. Berlusconi and Italy, "the preoccupation is, `Why don't we count more?' "

Mr. Bush did tell reporters at his joint appearance with Mr. Berlusconi earlier this week that: "I'm pleased to be able to give him a lunch. After all, I had one of the best lunches I've had since I've been the president because of the prime minister." A Berlusconi aide said he was fondly recalling the tricolored pasta in the red, white and green of the Italian flag, prepared by Mr. Berlusconi's personal chef during Mr. Bush's visit to Rome last summer.

Giulio Ferrara, editor of the newspaper Il Foglio, who first suggested the idea of a pro-American demonstration, said his friend Mr. Berlusconi "likes the plain speaking of Mr. Bush, including the gaffes from time to time. That's the bridge between them."

In an interview during his campaign last spring, Mr. Berlusconi was self-mocking about his admiration for all things American: "I am on whatever side America is on, even before I know what it is."

He had been widely criticized in Europe even before the remarks about Islam, particularly over his handling of antiglobalization protests in Genoa, where the police shot and killed one young demonstrator.

The Italian prime minister's pro- American agenda also leaves him at least theoretically vulnerable to criticism at home, where he is popular but America is not. "The main feeling here is anti-American," said his friend Paolo Guzzanti. "The left here thinks the only good Americans are Woody Allen and the Kennedys."