GAFFE:IT'S THE way he tells them. Loquacious Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi stirred up a major storm of outraged indignation yesterday by describing US president-elect Barack Obama, as "young, good-looking and suntanned".
The prime minister made the remarks at a press conference in Moscow where he is holding bilateral talks with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
Mr Berlusconi believes in his own charm. So he was probably being honest when he later said he meant his remark as a compliment. When asked afterwards by a reporter if he was worried his remarks might be misunderstood, he replied: "God save us from imbeciles."
Mr Berlusconi's remarks and his subsequent defence of his comments prompted immediate, bitter criticism in Italy.
Opposition Democratic Left (PD) leader Walter Veltroni said: "An imbecile is someone who doesn't grasp the seriousness of his remarks, who talks about the president of the United States as if he was some young guy whom he had just signed for his soccer team AC Milan. He has shown an amazing superficiality and one that raises goose pimples."
Mr Veltroni argued that the prime minister's remarks risked "causing a fracture" in Italo-USA relations. Senior centre-right figures, however, accused "pseudo-intellectual" critics of "taking themselves too seriously" and of having completely misunderstood a jocular compliment. It remains to be seen whether black America will interpret these remarks as such.
Mr Berlusconi is not new to verbose "gaffes". He once said he would woo Finnish president Tarja Halonen using his "playboy skills" to win Italy a major European food agency. That remark prompted protests from the Finnish embassy.
In a famous speech to the European Parliament in 2002, he suggested German MEP Martin Schultz would be perfect for the part of a concentration camp guard in a film. Mr Schultz had been criticising the conflicts of interest between millionaire Berlusconi's business interests and his role as prime minister.
In 2003 Mr Berlusconi infuriated many when he described Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini as a benign leader who did not murder people and whose internment camps were "like holiday camps". Perhaps his most serious gaffe, until yesterday, came in 2001 when he prompted international disapproval by suggesting western civilisation was superior to an Islamic one.