I'm putting up a Saturday afternoon update that illustrates the point.

It's not necessarily due to power, it can be due to servility. In fact, in Berlusconi's case, it is almost certainly the latter.

Perhaps what you meant to say was "we again get the picture of a European secret service that is equally involved in internal espionage as all the others."

Heh no, I meant a secret service taking requests for kidnappings on its own national soil. That's not international espionage.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}