Saturday, October 20, 2001

Remora

We at Limited Inc are not vindicative people. Some readers have asked us why we have never given a whole spot to Berlusconi, especially since we derided his comment about the superiority of Western Civilization to Islam. But at the moment, it is very hard to take umbrage at a man who finds himself playing a bit part, a swab, an Igor, to world historic events. There's a story about him in today's NYT, and these two grafs say it all.

"After Mr. Berlusconi, who is Italy's richest man, was not invited to a meeting of French, British and German leaders just before today's summit meeting, he showed how much he minded. At a news conference, he said he could not have fit the meeting into his schedule anyway, because he had a previous engagement with center-right leaders from Spain, Austria, and Luxembourg.

Of that group, he boasted that he was "the leader of the most important country."

More important than Austria? More important than Luxemborg? The heart swells. As for what Spain thought about Berlusconi claiming that to be king of the tree house, Lord only knows.

One of the odder characteristics of Braggart B. is how much he operates like a throwback to an earlier era. Weber, in Politics as a Vocation, an essay I am drawn to, lately, makes the point that politicians, just like artists, were invented in the Enlightenment, although of course they have their roots in the humanists of the Renaissance. And, like artists, politicians became autonomous as they separated themselves from patronage. That is, as they learned to live on the fruits of office, rather than having the office bought for them, or using it as a lookout from which to spy venues of pillage. A slow process, of course, which hasn't yet made its appearance here in Texas, but I trust in Weber -- modernity is a-comin'. Berlusconi, from all accounts, has made use of his own fortune and properties in order to run the prime ministers office -- in everything from holding meetings at his own villa in Rome to reimbursing certain of his deputies out of his own pocket. He operates, in other words, like a Medici. And that is very unusual.

Perhaps those who say the nation is disappearing are right, however. In which case all kinds of primitive political formations should start to appear.

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