Mrs. Berlusconi: Ciao, Silvio

By GottaLaff

Arrivederci, baby:

Less than a week after writing an open letter criticizing her husband for cavorting with much younger women, the wife of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said she wanted to file for divorce.

“I’d like to close the curtain on our married life,” Mr. Berlusconi’s wife, Veronica Lario, 52, told the center-left daily newspaper La Repubblica in an article published Sunday. “I was forced to take this step,” she told the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa. “I don’t want to add anything else.” [...]

If Ms. Lario does file for divorce, it is unclear whether Mr. Berlusconi, 72, will be affected politically. Despite colorful gaffes that would sink a politician elsewhere, Mr. Berlusconi enjoys more power and popularity than ever, thanks to the disarray of his left-wing opposition and his brilliant reading of Italian sensibilities.

In fact, part of Mr. Berlusconi’s success lies in his ability to present himself at once as a devoted family man and as a consummate ladies’ man, a contradiction embodied in his marriage to Ms. Lario. [...]

She was also angered by press reports that Mr. Berlusconi had attended the 18th birthday party in Naples of Noemi Letizia, who has said in several recent interviews that she called the prime minister “Daddy” and that he gave her a gold and diamond necklace.

“That surprised me,” Ms. Lario told ANSA. “Because he never attended the 18th birthday parties of his own children, even if he was invited.”

If President Obama presented himself as "at once as a devoted family man and as a consummate ladies’ man", he'd be impeached (see Clinton, Bill). It's a good thing all Bush did was torture people.