Why an Italian lawmaker's phone call trumps Obama's speech
| Milan, Italy
When Barack Obama praised Italian聽Prime Minister Mario Monti's聽work fighting his country's debt crisis, Italy's leader wasn't there to listen. He was talking on his cell phone.
According to leaks from Mr. Monti's staff, he had to take an 鈥渦rgent call鈥� from Fabrizio Cicchitto, a senior lawmaker from former leader Silvio Berlusconi's Freedom Party, just as the United States president began his speech during yesterday's nuclear energy summit in Seoul. The prime minister's聽staff refused to disclose the topic of such an urgent conversation.聽
While the world was well-acquainted with Mr. Berlusconi's gaffes (such has his description of Obama as a 鈥測oung man with a nice tan鈥�), the new prime minister's faux-pas was quite unexpected.聽Of the 52 world leaders at the summit, he was the only one who skipped Obama's speech.聽He was also the only leader openly mentioned in the same speech 鈥� a move widely interpreted as a demonstration of Mr. Obama's esteem.
Monti 鈥� a former university headmaster and European commissioner with an understated, professorial manner 鈥� seemed to fit in better than Berlusconi at international summits, making Monti well-suited to the task of restoring Italy's image abroad. It's one of the reasons Monti was chosen by the Italian Parliament to lead a transitional government when Berlusconi resigned last year.聽
But while Monti has a better international reputation than his predecessor, at home he is much less respected.
As a crisis-time leader who was appointed, not elected, some view Monti as a lame duck hostage to a Parliament still controlled by Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, and to them the fact that he put a Freedom party lawmaker over Obama confirms this view.
The anecdote became a hit on the Italian blogosphere and reached Twitter's top trends, with many cracking jokes on the newly-acquired status of Mr. Cicchitto, a medium-profile politician.
Among the jokes: 鈥�Pope Benedict had to postpone his meeting with Fidel Castro. He had to take a call from Cicchitto.鈥�
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