Yet another Berlusconi (sex) scandal

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here we go again:

Silvio Berlusconi's political career is once again in jeopardy after prosecutors today accused him of paying a "significant" number of women to have sex with him at parties he hosted last year.

Investigators also claim to have "ample investigative evidence" that Berlusconi provided flats for the women in return for sex at a Milan housing complex he built in the 1970s before entering politics.

He is already under investigation on suspicion of paying for sex with one of his guests, Karima el-Mahroug, a Moroccan belly dancer known as Ruby Rubacuori, when she was 17 – an offence under Italian law. He is also suspected of pressuring police into freeing her from custody after she was arrested on suspicion of theft last May.

Prosecutors outlined their case today in a document sent to parliament to seek permission to raid the Milan offices of a Berlusconi accountant they suspect of handling payments to the women.

The prime minister emerged with his popularity intact after accusations in 2009 that he held similar parties in Rome and slept with a prostitute. But with his parliamentary majority now under threat, the recent overturning of an immunity law and a criminal conviction now possible, the latest scandal may prove more damaging and lead to elections this spring.

Yes, maybe, but it's already amazing that Berlusconi has managed to keep his political career, at the highest level, going this far.

Well, no, it isn't. The rampant corruption in Italian society has been widely documented -- just read or watch Gomorrah, for example, or read The Monster of Florence -- and so it's hardly surprising that the country's political leader is himself as corrupt as they come, an oligarch who controls a great deal of the Italian media.

And when you already have the media in behind you, or in front of you, or all around you, spinning your lies and defending you no matter what, well...

I'm tempted to write that the Italians have the prime minister they deserve, and that there won't be meaningful change until they refuse to put up with this shit anymore.

One thing's clear, though: Berlusconi deserves more than just a punch in the face.

Am I advocating violence? No, no. He and his anti-democratic media empire just need to be kept as far away from political power as possible.

Unless, of course, Italians are happy living in a pseudo-democracy under the authoritarian rule of a veritable thug. I suppose it's up to them.

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