Guard on the Right

Telegraph:

Silvio Berlusconi, the president of Italy, has launched a bizarre personal attack on his opponents accusing them of not "washing themselves enough."

Mr Berlusconi, 74, who has been charged with having underage sex with a prostitute [one imagines they mean "sex with an underage prostitute," but no matter], accused the centre left of being smelly as tensions rose ahead of local elections this weekend.

There's your problem right there. Tension. Here in the U.S., which thank God maintains its decades-long lead over Europe in anti-stench technology, guys can do death-defying motorcycle jumps and come out not the least bit gamy, I have learned via televisionic device.

The billionaire media tycoon is currently involved in four separate trials with charges also including abuse of office and corruption. The the [sic] election was being seen as a test of his popularity.

During a final rally in the southern Italian city of Crotone, Berlusconi said: "The leaders of the Left don't wash themselves much. When they go into the bathroom, and they don't go often since they don't wash much, they look in the mirror when they shave and surprise themselves."

Not exactly the Gettysburg Address there, Silvio.

Mr Berlusconi has a reputation for disliking beards, seeing them as sign of left leaning political sympathies. His obsession with hygiene has also emerged from intercepts of his infamous "bunga bunga" parties.

The phrase is said to refer to a crude after-dinner sex game and from the wire taps girls invited to the parties reveal how Berlusconi asked them to wash before performing sexy stripteases and lap dances for him.

Berlusconi has often resorted to personal attacks on his opponents particularly on their looks - last year he slammed centre left female opposition MPs as "ugly."

No doubt.

His comments provoked an immediate reaction from opponents including Pierluigi Bersani, the leader of Italy's the centre-left Democratic Party who said: "If we don't wash much, it's because we are clean." . . .

Yeah, sure. There's more, but it has nothing to do with smelliness, so read it yourself if you want.