If there is a world leader that going to say something dumb there are two usual candidates. Everyone’s favorite Venezuelan Hugo Chaves, or the man heading a seeming permanently “a crumbling coalition” government Silvio Berlusconi.
This week it’s the Italian’s turn. The coalition he heads has split and he has lost his majority in the Italian parliament after a falling out with former ally, Gianfranco Fini.
At a recent political gathering Berlusconi told a joke in which Adolf Hitler is begged by his supporters to return to power after they discover he is still alive. After resisting, Hitler says: “I’ll come back, but on one condition … next time I’m going to be evil.”
Opposition politicians demanded Berlusconi apologise to Israel and the Italian Jewish community. The opposition party leader, Antonio Di Pietro, said: “At this point the problem is not political or judicial, but psychiatric.”
This is why we all love Italian politics, the opposition speculate that the PM is mentally unstable (perhaps with good reason). But wait, there is more from the man.
He then started discussing the economy, he suggested (and you can’t make this stuff up) that marrying into money was a good idea.
At which point he said “I am friendly, I have money, legend has it I know how to do ‘it’, and lastly because girls think: ‘He’s old and rich, he will die soon and I will inherit everything.”