ONLY IN ITALY. In a perfectly Italian story, the wife of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had La Repubblica, a paper hostile to Berlusconi, publish a front page letter to her husband demanding a public apology for his shameless and shameful flirting with other women. This has not only become an encompassing political story, it's triggered an apparent national yearning for the madcap eccentricities of Berlusconi's tenure, which was considered more authentically Italian than the dull, technocratic administration of his successor. Meanwhile, Berlusconi sent out his own letter for publication. �Your dignity," he wrote, "should not be an issue: I will guard it like a precious material in my heart even when thoughtless jokes come out of my mouth. But marriage proposals [he was accused of faux-proposing to a comely bystander], no, believe me, I have never made one to anyone. Forgive me, however, I beg of you, and take this public testimony of private pride that submits to your anger as an act of love. One among many. A huge kiss. Silvio.� --Ezra Klein
