Silvio Berlusconi reckons Benito Mussolini did quite well, actually, apart from those racial laws

Sunday, January 27, 2013. On the International Holocaust Remembrance Day Silvio Berlusconi finds it compelling to defend Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's deeds, another victim of the “German power”, before taking a nap on a ceremony about the Shoah he wasn't even invited to.

Sleeping the sleep of the just?

It hasn't been the first time that Silvio Berlusconi felt like defending "poor" Mussolini, who – in the view of the former Italian prime minister – was a “benevolent leader”, who “never killed anybody” and just used to “send people on holiday”, but this time the timing seemed to be really dodgy, even for the prone-to-blunder media tycoon. 

On Sunday Silvio took part in the inauguration of a monument to the deported of the Shoah, and he must have though "what a better occasion than this one, to praise good ol' Benito?".

Silvio Berlusconi and the (Italian) clash of the century, with his nemesis Michele Santoro

Thursday, 10 January 2013. Silvio Berlusconi enters the lions den, where Michele Santoro and Marco Travaglio were looking forward to devouring the former prime minister.

Santoro and Berlusconi

Allegedly Silvio Berlusconi kicked Michele Santoro out of Italian public TV RAI, back in 2002, that's why the clash between the former prime minister and the left-wing anchorman was described as the duel of the century by many.

Silvio Berlusconi was supposed to walk out in anger, after Michele Santoro and his associate Marco Travaglio would have grilled him properly.

Almost 9 million Italians were glued to the video (one third of the audience, up to 50 per cent in the heat of the discussion), as the Santoro-team attacked on waves.

Nothing doing, the former prime minister fended off Santoro's lunges, ignored Luisella Costamagna remarks, and even returned fire to Marco Travaglio, by enlisting – written on a letter he abruptly pulled out of his pocket - ten lawsuits for defamation the journalist had lost.

Berlusconi cleansing the chair where Travaglio sat

Attacks regarding sex-scandals, Rubygate, and the paying of the 42 bunga-bunga army girls, the request of saying to the Italians he was sorry... all in vane. Silvio Berlusconi answers blending wit remarks, with shreds of statistics, smiles and provocations. And, once again, he gets away with it, and keeps on «gaining back who already voted for me, and perhaps convincing new voters», as he put it.

How to convince the Italians that the People of Liberty party is the right choice? Silvio Berlusconi's pièce de résistance is the abolition of a tax on proprieties, which yield would be – according to the former Italian prime minister – replaced by new taxes on tobaccos, spirits and gambling (the tax was introduced by Berlusconi himselft, but it's the Monti's government that made it applicable to owners of first homes).

Running out of options, Santoro also showed a video taken almost four years before (in April 2009), when Silvio Berlusconi had been keeping waiting German chancellor Angela Merkel while he was talking on the telephone (the video is available on our YouTube channel, click here> to watch it). Well, of course Silvio had an answer for that (he could have work out quite a range of replies, in four years...), but before replying to it – revealing he had been talking to Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan about a crucial topic of the summit - he said «Santoro, you're digging your own grave.».

“I'm having fun” would later declare smiling the former prime minister. Santoro – quite evidently – was not having fun, was visibly annoyed and refuse to shake hands with Silvio, at a certain stage. At least until Silvio left and he went on giggling with his cartoonist friend, Vauro Senesi, who showed the sketches he had been drawing during the programme, in what Santoro called «my communist moments.».

While enjoying his communists moments, Santoro might be an unaware supporter for Silvio, whose deficit had been reducing constantly, since the Italian politician started to show off on TV, without finding any credible opposition. So far.

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Video from our YouTube Channel: Berluschannel

Silvio Berlusconi and the would-be First Lady

Tuesday, 25 December 2012. As Silvio Berlusconi reaches a settlement with his previous wife, the alleged new fiancée Francesca Pascale is being raised to become the official partner of the Knight, starting with the official photos.

Official pictures of the would-be First Lady

25 December 2012, Christmas day, was the day of the final settlement of the legal separation between Veronica Lario and Silvio Berlusconi (even though he will try and recover a part of the 36m euro a bunch of "feminist and communist" judges sentenced him to pay), and the day of the first official photo shoot of the apparent heir of Mrs Lario, Miss Francesca Pascale, at the villa of the former prime minister and billionaire in Arcore, near Milan.

Four of the photos were published by Italian news agency ANSA, in order to let the public know how the young Francesca is taking seriously the new role, (apparently) hoping to fully take over Mr Berlusconi's former wife place and fully join the family as soon as possible...

The engagement with 27-year-old Francesca Pascale was announced by Silvio last December, on his own TV network's Canale 5's Sunday afternoon Domenica Live, on 16 December 2012. The event has been promptly added to Silvio's page on Wikipedia.