What prompted Berlusconi to go to Russia is controversial. Every explanation he gave stumbles on facts. The visit was unannounced, outside state protocol (although B used state aircraft and state resources) and falsely depicted as a summit over gas pipelines. Alert reporters quickly noted that B was not accompanied by specialists nor officials involved in gas dealings. Some reports suggest that the two handled their private affairs concerning media domination in Russia. Both B's reactions and that of the foreign service appear misleading and arrogant. One might as well speculate that Putin satisfied some of B's sexual fancies, as B is hard put to get a fresh lay in Italy at the moment. Inference to the best explanation.

The parallel between de Gaulle and B is deliberately absurd. Whereas de Gaulle affronted a serious threat to state power by a worker's strike and the student occupation in May 68, B concocts menaces where there is nothing more than the force of institutions and normal democratic opposition. He is his own threat and in his paranoid delirium sees subversion everywhere.

This "subversion" is nothing more than critical observation of a person who has succeeded in gravely compromising the functions of the state and its institutions to satisfy his bulimic need "to be loved," as he puts it, and to be the "absolute truth." This is his driving force. Nothing else exists beyond his personal interests. Modern states and economies are far too complex and interdependent to allow a citizen to see tangible results in an elected official's conduct over a brief period. This void allows opportunists, impresarios and charlatans to put on big shows with all the razzmatazz, rather than assume their lacklustre, onerous and ungracious responsibilities to the citizenry.

B's political initiatives beyond his immediate conflicts of interest can be summed up as vacuous self-promotion. Italy is in shambles and slips further down the ladder with each passing day while B trumpets his great garbage-in-Naples sleight-of-hand or caters to base instincts such as racism or sheer greed. His government has no project nor ever had one. Italy is living through a power void where the tinsel is now on the floor, B's minions jockey for the last bite, while he flays around, ranting in rigorous black shirts about non-existent conspiracies like a petty winter patriarch.

In this scenario it is astounding that the parliament is shut down. An institution that shoulders the blame for decades of mediocre legislation and missed opportunities, yet is further humiliated by an electoral law that turns MP's and Senators into doormats appointed by a bevy of winners. With the parliament closed, we cannot even hear the voice nor the reasons of the opposition. That's now been relegated to television where the implacable eye of the director makes opinion.

Certainly his trials will change little. There is a judiciary void, imposed through decades of nonsensical legislation that turns the effective execution of a sentence into metaphysical quibbling. There is crime but no punishment. That is the hard core of berlusconismo. In theory, but only in theory, that is by law, B would have to quit office were he condemned in a court. It's law. But it doesn't apply to him.