So der Titel von Alexander Stilles bedrückendem Portrait über die politische Situation in Italien, die er hübsch eine „whore-ocracy“ nennt. Der Artikel ist leider kostenpflichtig.

In the past year, Italy’s political life has come to resemble some strange cross between a Mexican soap opera and Suetonius‘ description of the imperial excesses of the Caesars. First there were the revelations of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s peculiar relationship with Noemi Letizia, a teenage girl from Naples who called him „Papi,“ prompting speculation about whether she was his illegitimate daughter or an underage lover. „I wish she was his daughter!“ Berlusconi’s wife, Veronica Lario, commented; she asked publicly for a divorce, saying that she could no longer stay with a man who „frequented minors“ and „was not well.“

Next there were the photographs of the bacchanalia with topless girls and pantless politicians at Berlusconi’s pleasure palace villa in Sardinia, recalling images of Tiberius at Capri. Finally, there was the case of the call girls attending Berlusconi’s parties at the presidential palace in Rome, many of them paid by a Southern Italian businessman interested in winning government contracts for his health care business.
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