How the Italian media sucks up to Berlusconi...

Shocked? Indignant? Hard to tell, really. Most Italians simply don't know that Silvio Berlusconi has compared the plight of earthquake victims forced to sleep in tents in the wintry weather of the Abruzzo region to a camping holiday.

Television broadcasts tactfully ignored the slip. The good man, after all, was only trying to keep everyone's morale up. Virtually every newspaper in the country did the same. Only the readers of the very leftwing Il Manifesto were informed in a brief note: "Shock at 'camping weekend' comment. But only abroad." That's it, really. Past caring. If you can take the spectacle of your prime minister parading in front of TV cameras, massed officialdom and one miserable homeless old lady in an outsize fireman's helmet, you can take anything.  More...

See also:

1. Berlusconi to earthquake victims: Take it as weekend camping...
2. Mara Carfagna, Berlusconi's new spokesperson...
3. Italian cities to ban ethnic foods??? WTF!
4. Italy and its gypsies...
5. Italy: fascists offer money for babies to be named "Benito..."