Strange Bedfellows
"Just don't kiss and tell, Silvio."
As allegations of churlishness continue to ooze out about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a newly minted book by a call girl who claims to have bedded down with him offers a reminder of the tight relationship he has with Russia's top dawg:
ROME (Reuters) -- The escort at the heart of a sex scandal involving Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gave graphic details of their alleged lovemaking in a book published on Tuesday and said she had been attacked and threatened since.
Patrizia D'Addario, in her memoir entitled "Enjoy, Prime Minister", describes a party held at Berlusconi's Rome residence, Palazzo Grazioli, and gives intimate details of a night spent with the 73-year-old premier in a bed given him by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The two (meaning Putin and Berlusconi) are famously close. And Reuters appears to have
solved a mystery regarding the bed's provenance: a gift that keeps on giving. Which is a relief, because it boggles the mind to think why else he'd call it the "
Putin bed."
Never mind the accompanying risks, given Putin's extensive experience in the art of surveillance. (Remember the
then-Czech prime minister's Berlusconi, er, moment?)
Still, the revelation gives me the willies. But it does explain the Italian prime minister's willingness to scratch a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah in order to deliver a present of his own to Putin on the Russian leader's 57th birthday in October. So what did he get Putin? you might ask.
Wine, apparently.
Ah, the bacchanalia continues.
-- Andy Heil
Tags:
escort
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bed
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berlusconi
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Vladimir Putin