About Time

Berlusconi has finally been indicted for his record setting false accounting and tax evasion. The odd thing is that prosecutors announced that they had finished the investigation months ago (more than a year ago I think). Oddly the "rinvio a giudizio" came only now after the elections. I think someone in the palazzo di giustizia in Milan decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

I wonder if Brad is about to run for the "forest-phone" again. If so, I should say that I don't expect this to have any political implications either. Almost all Italians (including most Berlusconi supporters) assume that he is a crook. The others are sure that the Procura di Milano is a den of communist conspirators and will not be convinced by any evidence.

Speaking of evidence, said procura might not be a den of commies but their approach to the obligation to keep investigations secret is more similar to Starr's than to Fitzgerald's so I am rather familiar with the overwhelming evidence that Berlusconi is guilty guilty guilty.

For the past 5 years Berlusconi has had the power to rewrite the law so one might imagine that he legalised all of his crimes. His problem is that one of them was transferring money from his firm (then Fininvest now called Mediaset) to himself. Legalising such conduct means abandoning capitalism. Berlusconi wouldn't care, but his allies must have balked.

I won't predict if this is the time he will actually get nailed even though I am very very tempted.