DEAR MR. BUSH ...

"The bizarre career of Silvio Berlusconi – from crooner to media tycoon and now prime minister of Italy in personal control of most of the country's television media – never ceases to amaze. He is currently using every lever of his media-political empire to help ensure that his bedazzled citizens re-elect him and his Forza Italia party in the country's general elections on 9-10 April 2006.

As such a moment of historic choice nears, it is natural to hope that foreign governments will attend to the condition of democracy in our country with respect and curiosity – but also refrain from any appearance of partisanship in the great contest.

It is especially shocking, then, to see that the President of the United States, George W Bush, has – by inviting Berlusconi to address a joint meeting of Congress on 1 March – made an astonishing intervention into Italian politics which shows a brazen disregard of this principle of democratic behaviour".

Curiosos ?
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