The intricacies of Italian politics have baffled the rest of the world for many centuries. Nonetheless, what's past is mere prologue, compared to the stunning near-victory of Silvio Berlusconi in last week's election. Berlusconi's career has been, to put it politely, controversial. He has been the object of over twenty court cases, a conviction for tax evasion, several sex scandals, and innumerable accusations of fraud, media monopoly, shady political maneuvers, and pro-Mussolini remarks. Nonetheless, he has been Prime Minister of Italy three times-for more years than any other post-WWII Italian PM. Numerous explanations and analyses of this paradox have been published but their vagueness merely reveals that the media are as bewildered as you and I about the psyche of the Italian voter. I would like to suggest that irony and cynicism may be contributing factors. Berlusconi would have been a shoo-in candidate for prime minister of the Babin Republic, a satiric realm which one historian described thus:. In 1568 a Polish gentleman named Pszonka founded on his estate, Babin,....
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