Word: berlusconis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...pointy black tail when the Commander-in-Chief strides into the White House living room. So it seemed auspicious that rolling up to the South Lawn on Monday was the man who might just be President Bush's Last Best Friend on Earth. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi arrived in Washington just in time for Columbus Day, and just in time to say what almost no other political figure would venture to say out loud right now: "I'm 100% sure and positive that history will say that George W. Bush has been a great, very great President...
...effusive and stubbornly loyal Berlusconi has stuck with Bush despite the American President's abiding unpopularity in Italy. More than 80% of Italians were opposed to the war in Iraq, but their controversial Prime Minister helped spearhead the so-called "Letter of Eight" public declaration of support from some European leaders for Bush's Iraq policy in the weeks before the invasion. Following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Berlusconi sent 3,000 Italian peacekeeping troops to southern Iraq. During Bush's June 2004 visit to Rome, the two leaders were the target of a massive anti-war rally. But Berlusconi...
...Berlusconi's failed reelection bid in 2006 meant a two-year parenthesis of somewhat cooler Washington-Rome relations, as center-left Prime Minister Romano Prodi, an opponent of Bush's Iraq policy, came to power in Italy. By the time Prodi's government collapsed and Berlusconi returned to power last spring, Bush was already registering dismal approval ratings, and heading toward the lower rungs in the historians' presidential ratings game...
None of that, evidently, has changed the equation for Berlusconi. At Monday's White House ceremony, the Italian Prime Minister gushed with praise for his host: "I've been honored over these years by the possibility of cooperating with you. I've found in you a man of great ideals, great principles, a man of vision." He continued: "And it was always easy for me to share your ideas, to share your visions, to be next to you, to stand next to you, because we are always bound by these common love for freedom, love for democracy, respect...
...European governments can certainly talk the talk of coordination. Following a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Berlin yesterday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, "We both agree that Europeans of course need to display a coherent course of action." President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which currently holds the rotating E.U. presidency, read on television a common statement from all 27 members pledging to adopt "all necessary measures to protect the stability of the financial system...