On Prime Minister Berlusconi

As many of you know, Italian Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been indicted n charges of paying an under-age woman for sex and using his position to hide
it. Lately, the whole ordeal has begun to sound eerily similar to the Tiger
Woods scandal that rocked his personal life and career in late 2009 and early 2010.

It has become all too common for
high-profile figures to pursue extramarital sexual relationships, almost to the
point where it’s easy to get callous – almost nothing is really surprising
anymore. However, Prime Minister Berlusconi’s story is in fact a tragic one. As
seems to be a fairly common happening, Karima El Marhough, the woman Berlusconi
is alleged to have slept with told him that she was 24 when she was in fact 17.
Despite this, it is very difficult to vindicate Berlusconi at all. His career,
especially recently has been blighted by allegations that he has engaged in
inappropriate relations with women in the past, including one 18 year old
daughter of his friend.          

In April, Prime Minister Berlusconi
will go to trial and the issues currently discussed will be formally brought to
a head. But I would like to comment briefly on the actions that have put Prime
Minister Berlusconi in this situation in the first place. I’ll admit that the
Prime Minister looks very guilty, or at the least, not completely innocent. But
giving him the benefit of the doubt, it is evident that the Prime Minister
jettisoned prudence in his relationship with El Marhough. In the light of
previous sex scandals
, one would expect that Berlusconi approach every
subsequent relationship with an orientation towards chastity and sexual
integrity. Obviously he has failed to do so, and ultimately, even if by some
strange set of events is innocent, he has truly brought this tragedy upon
himself.