New sex tape deepens Silvio Berlusconi scandal

by LotusFlower | July 21, 2009 at 10:54 am

4105 views | 30 Recommendations | 9 comments

Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi was plunged further into scandal today as a new sex tape was released to the press by a call girl from Bari.

That Berlusconi has survived the ongoing revelations about his private life has amazed many but as more and more tapes, this being the second in two days, hit the headlines some feel that the Italian public are losing patience with their leader.

Berlusconi is famed for his many gaffes but these latest revelations could be a gaffe too far.

In the clip, the second in as many days to emerge on the website of the left-Leaning magazine L'Espresso, Patrizia D'Addario, a prostitute from Bari who has claiemd she made the recordings, and a man who allegedly paid her to sleep with the prime minister purportedly discuss the terms of the encounter.

The entrepreneur, alleged to be Gianpaolo Tarantini, purportedly tells Miss D'Addario that Mr Berlusconi "is not taking you as a call girl ... he's taking you as a friend of mine that I brought along".

Silvio probably did the casting couch on all major women players in his empire, unless, of course, they were doing someone else important at the time.

How do I know this?

A little Italian bird told me.

Roy - this guy is capable of anything - how can someone like this get to lead a country?

This man really does know how to attract scandal and his attitudes do nothing to help his case. It almost seems that the more attention he gets, the more vile he becomes.

It makes me think about all our other 'leaders' - is he the only one of them that does stuff like this or is he just more 'careless'?

Hope he's the only one... can't see Gordon Brown doing many of the things Berlusconi gets accused of... but who knows...?

I'm sure there's an element of it elsewhere but nothing to the same extend. You can't keep that sort of thing secret for long.

The second in two days!? That's crazy - I think it's about time he speaks out about what is happening at least.

Reagan was quite a womanizer, and he had a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel where he had his "trysts".

He did settle down after meeting Nancy Reagan, and he switched from lib to conservative as well.

Berlusconi has power because the same five parties, the "Pentapartito", of Chistian Demos, Italian Republicans, Socialsts, Social Democrats, and Liberals were all against the Italian Communist Party.

After the Tangentopoli Scandal (Kickback City Scandal), where all the kickbacks between private business, state companies under the IRI group, and the parties was revealed, hundreds of politicians were indicted, and sent to prison.

Literally several dozen committed suicide.

Berlusconi's TV empire was essentially illegal. It was kept in life by the Socialist party head, Bettino Craxi, who, after meeting Berlusconi behind closed doors, told the other members of the Pentapartito that if Berlusconi's TV empire were to be closed down, then he would quite the coalition.

Craxi was found guilty of bribery and allowed, literally allowed, to escape to Tunisia where he died in disgrace with an estimated 400 million dollars in a bank in Hong Kong that refused to receive, let alone read, any legal summons from Di Pietro, the magistrate who started the investigation.

How widespread was the corruption? An American musician I knew well had a job at RAI that paid a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year, that he mostly paid out in bribes to the people who got him the job.

Anyway, after the Berlin Wall fell and the Tangentopoli scandal, the Christian Democrats split into a right and left version of themselves and the Italian communist party split. The greater part renounced communism and joined the ex-Christian Democrats to start the new Italian Democratic Party.

The Italian Fascist Party renounced fascism, and Berlusconi started a new party of his own called "Forza Italia", a football cheer name with the other ex-Christian Democrats. The other small parties and the Socialist party died.

There was so much corruption in Italy that no one was outside of it. In the wake of that and the economic problems that neither party can solve, Berlusconi got elected prime minister.

Complicated enough?