In recent days, Berlusconi, together with his television channels and his newspapers, has been conducting a campaign of denigration aimed at discrediting me personally and the Italia dei Valori party as a whole.
Here are some of the cracks made by Silvio Berlusconi during an interview with Il Tempo on 27 March 2008. I would like to remind the paper’s editor, Giuseppe Sanzotta, in passing, that Silvio Berlusconi is not currently premier.
The premier pulls a face. «My father - he says – told me this one, and it goes something like this. What does the son of a criminal become when he grows up? He only has two job options. Either he becomes a criminal or he becomes a Public Prosecutor». Laughter (abridged)
He then goes back to attacking Antonio Di Pietro. «Di Pietro horrifies me – he states – not because he is ugly, because he is unable to conjugate his verbs, because he does not know his subjunctives, or because of the fact that he gained his degree thanks to the Services. Anyone that speaks as he does could not have got his degree in the normal manner». Absolute jubilation. Berlusconi thinks back to his student days and tells that: «When I was busy preparing for my exams, and getting scores of thirty with distinction, there was a curfew in place in my building in order to ensure that I would study. At Montenero di Bisaccia, instead, no one even knew that Di Pietro was reading for his degree. Not even his parents were aware that he was studying». «Di Pietro horrifies me – continues Berlusconi – because he sent Italians to jail without any proof. A man who has no respect for others is a man that horrifies me ».
As regards the matter of the “degree”, a pet topic that Berlusconi has used on and off throughout all the election campaigns to date, I already gave my response on 30 January 2006 on this very blog:
Graduates and non-graduates
During a recent meeting with Rutelli, the current Prime Minister raised certain doubts as to whether or not I had actually earned my degree and went on to state that his political adversaries are, for the most part, not even graduates.
I talk facts, not lies or allusions.
This is proven by my Degree in Law, which I obtained on 19 July 1978.
The same year that the prime minister (now former) joined the P2 Masonic Lodge.
No judgement based entirely on a political science degree can be absolute. A degree certainly has a certain value. But equally so do political integrity and the ability to govern, which are totally lacking in the centre-right.
I would also like to remind the former Prime Minister that his former brotherhood colleague Bettino Craxi was not a graduate.