Sex, we learn from the Silvio Berlusconi episodes, is an addiction that can be cured in a clinic. The Italian premier is being nudged by his inner circle to go in for rehab, says the biography of Silvio’s long-suffering wife Veronica. Some would argue that Signor Berlusconi, at 72, needs a medal, not a cure. But they wouldn’t be fiery Latins, would they? The Berlusconi hind, after all, occupies a seat graced by the likes of Caligula. Have a heart, we say to all those clamouring for a pop at a sex clinic. Good old Silvio by descent, and periodic ascents, is a hostage of history.
The non-Roman world isn’t unfamiliar with this latest form of substance abuse either. Great leaders — from Ghengis Khan to Mao Zedong — have gone to great lengths to establish their greatness in the sack. What an anti-climax if the court shrink were to suggest to, say, Jalaluddin Akbar that he needed his head examined periodically. Think of the loss to architecture if there were no harems to house — the Forbidden City reduced to a two-bedroom flat.
Politicians prosecuting their art in an era of the Freudian slip are a harassed lot. The conduct of statecraft has, with equivocal wisdom, moved from the serene calm of the bedchamber to halls filled with very noisy people. All hope is not lost, however, as long as a Berlusconi, or a Clinton, or a Kennedy emerges among the grey flannel suits that run the affairs of mankind today.