Sympathy For The Cavaliere

Getting smacked in the face with a souvenir statuette may have been the best thing that could have happened to Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian Prime Minister, due to be released from the hospital tomorrow, is the beneficiary of a wave of sympathy that has changed the conversation in his country.

Graphic images showing the leader with blood splattered over his face will likely to boost the premier’s political popular, analysts say, just as his popularity had begun to plummet amid sex scandals, a public divorce, and legal woes.

And while his assailant, the mentally-disturbed Massimo Tartaglia, has already apologized for his “cowardly and rash act” and made it clear that he was acting alone, the Right is making much of a “climate of hatred” against the premier, which it will presumably use to justify further restrictions on protests against him. You might even think the whole thing was some kind of set-up! But that would be crazy. This is Italy, that stuff would never happen.

In related news, “the $16 souvenir that Tartaglia used as a weapon became a best seller among tourists and curious Milan residents, according to souvenir vendors.” Maybe they were in on it too!