I am a Ghost
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Last updated at 7:02 PM on 06th November 2008
Bungling Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was tonight at the centre of controversy after praising U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on his great SUNTAN.
Media tycoon Berlusconi, 72, famous for his gaffes, made the remark while in Moscow visiting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and said Obama was 'young, handsome and tanned'.
The Italian PM in the past has come out with priceless howlers, including labelling one German MEP a 'prison of war camp guard' and saying that the 'West was superior to Islam'.
Last night, as he was condemned from all sides for his remarks on Obama, a rattled Berlusconi snapped: 'What's the problem? It was a compliment. If these people don't have a sense of humour then it's their problem,' he said, according to Ansa news agency.
Only 'imbeciles' would interpret his comments as derogatory, Berlusconi was quoted as saying by Ansa.
The website of top-selling Italian daily La Repubblica said: 'Right on cue comes the first almighty gaffe - which risks to outshine even the German MEP one.'
Permatanned Berlusconi had been slammed by Italian opposition MP Dario Franceschini who said: 'He needs to apologise straight away. The best theory is that he can no longer control himself.
What Berlusconi doesn't realise is that his words damage the image of our country across the whole world. To say that the new President of the United States is handsome, young and suntanned will be seen as offensive by the whole world. It's loaded with dangerous ambiguity.'
Berlusconi is currently on trial for corruption along with David Mills, the estranged husband of Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell and is renowned for putting his foot in it.
Earlier this year at a press-conference with the Russian president Vladimir Putin, a Russian journalist, Natalia Melikova, put a question to Putin, asking him if he intended divorcing his wife and marrying Alina Kabaeva, an Olympic gold medallist and an MP in Russia.
Berlusconi intervened when his guest showed annoyance by a gesture towards the journalist that imitated a gunman shooting.
Enlarge No rest for the weary: Barack Obama heads home from the gym in Chicago today
No rest for the weary: Barack Obama heads home from the gym in Chicago today
The journalist was reportedly reduced to tears.
Putin denied rumours that he was to marry Kabaeva and a spokesman for Berlusconi played it down as a 'playful gesture.'
While in 2002 on his first meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in 2002, Berlusconi said:
'Rasmussen is not only a great colleague, he's also the best-looking prime minister in Europe.'
He added: 'He's so good looking, I'm even thinking of introducing him to my wife.'
But Berlusconi's wife has not always been happy with him either - in January 2007 he told TV star Mara Carfagna that if he 'wasn't married' he would 'gladly marry her.'
He was later forced to make a grovelling apology to his wife while Carfagna is now a minister in his Cabinet and the Government's official spokesperson.
*
Other Silvio slip-ups:
At the Brussels summit at the end of Italy's EU presidency in December 2003:
'Let's talk about football and women.' (Turning to four-times-married German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.) 'Gerhard, why don't you start?'
On Mussolini:
'Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile.'
A joke about Aids told by Mr Berlusconi:
'An Aids patient asks his doctor whether the sand treatment prescribed him will do any good. 'No', the doctor replies, 'but you will get accustomed to living under the earth'.'
At a rally during the 2006 election campaign he said:
'Read The Black Book of Communism and you will discover that in the China of Mao, they did not eat children, but had them boiled to fertilise the fields.'
At the launch of the 2006 campaign:
'I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone.'
Last updated at 7:02 PM on 06th November 2008
Bungling Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was tonight at the centre of controversy after praising U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on his great SUNTAN.
Media tycoon Berlusconi, 72, famous for his gaffes, made the remark while in Moscow visiting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and said Obama was 'young, handsome and tanned'.
The Italian PM in the past has come out with priceless howlers, including labelling one German MEP a 'prison of war camp guard' and saying that the 'West was superior to Islam'.
Last night, as he was condemned from all sides for his remarks on Obama, a rattled Berlusconi snapped: 'What's the problem? It was a compliment. If these people don't have a sense of humour then it's their problem,' he said, according to Ansa news agency.
Only 'imbeciles' would interpret his comments as derogatory, Berlusconi was quoted as saying by Ansa.
The website of top-selling Italian daily La Repubblica said: 'Right on cue comes the first almighty gaffe - which risks to outshine even the German MEP one.'
Permatanned Berlusconi had been slammed by Italian opposition MP Dario Franceschini who said: 'He needs to apologise straight away. The best theory is that he can no longer control himself.
What Berlusconi doesn't realise is that his words damage the image of our country across the whole world. To say that the new President of the United States is handsome, young and suntanned will be seen as offensive by the whole world. It's loaded with dangerous ambiguity.'
Berlusconi is currently on trial for corruption along with David Mills, the estranged husband of Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell and is renowned for putting his foot in it.
Earlier this year at a press-conference with the Russian president Vladimir Putin, a Russian journalist, Natalia Melikova, put a question to Putin, asking him if he intended divorcing his wife and marrying Alina Kabaeva, an Olympic gold medallist and an MP in Russia.
Berlusconi intervened when his guest showed annoyance by a gesture towards the journalist that imitated a gunman shooting.
Enlarge No rest for the weary: Barack Obama heads home from the gym in Chicago today
No rest for the weary: Barack Obama heads home from the gym in Chicago today
The journalist was reportedly reduced to tears.
Putin denied rumours that he was to marry Kabaeva and a spokesman for Berlusconi played it down as a 'playful gesture.'
While in 2002 on his first meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in 2002, Berlusconi said:
'Rasmussen is not only a great colleague, he's also the best-looking prime minister in Europe.'
He added: 'He's so good looking, I'm even thinking of introducing him to my wife.'
But Berlusconi's wife has not always been happy with him either - in January 2007 he told TV star Mara Carfagna that if he 'wasn't married' he would 'gladly marry her.'
He was later forced to make a grovelling apology to his wife while Carfagna is now a minister in his Cabinet and the Government's official spokesperson.
*
Other Silvio slip-ups:
At the Brussels summit at the end of Italy's EU presidency in December 2003:
'Let's talk about football and women.' (Turning to four-times-married German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.) 'Gerhard, why don't you start?'
On Mussolini:
'Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile.'
A joke about Aids told by Mr Berlusconi:
'An Aids patient asks his doctor whether the sand treatment prescribed him will do any good. 'No', the doctor replies, 'but you will get accustomed to living under the earth'.'
At a rally during the 2006 election campaign he said:
'Read The Black Book of Communism and you will discover that in the China of Mao, they did not eat children, but had them boiled to fertilise the fields.'
At the launch of the 2006 campaign:
'I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone.'