I'm Just Gonna Stop Asking If It's Over For Berlusconi

This website is in its fifth year, and I cannot count how many times I have wondered aloud in its pages if Italian prostitute associate Silvio Berlusconi’s political career has reached its end. (I mean, I could count, but you have no idea how depressing it is to go back through the archives.) So even though there has been a good deal of turmoil in Italy’s already chaotic political scene of late, I remained skeptical that it would in any way draw the curtain on the Berlusconi era. Still, it is hard not to perk up to something like this:

He has weathered sex scandals and corruption allegations that would have sunk the career of most politicians long ago.

But Silvio Berlusconi was dealt a fresh blow today in Italy’s parliament, after he backtracked on his attempt to undermine the country’s fragile ruling coalition and ultimately supported its continuation….

Abandoned by top aides and choked by legal woes, Silvio Berlusconi’s defeat in a showdown with Prime Minister Enrico Letta on Wednesday was seen by analysts as a sign of his terminal decline. After two decades in politics, the bombastic tycoon who once compared himself to Jesus Christ cut an increasingly lonely figure as one by one his lieutenants broke ranks to support the government.

Unless you have done this once or twice before, in which case you know what follows. Oh, yes, here it is: “Yet analysts caution that the reversal may not drive the final nail in the coffin of Mr. Berlusconi’s political fortunes.” As you were.