As I tell many people, I’ve been reading The Economist now for more than 15 years (I also subscribe to what many call “The greatest magazine written in the English language”!). In all these years you could say I’ve seen a political analysis or two on world leaders, from Bin Laden (there was a recent survey on Al-Qaeda and B.L.) to George Bush Jr. to Tony Blair. I (can’t) even count on two fingers the times I’ve seen the magazine slam Canada’s prime ministers and/or political leaders on the front page, nor have I ever seen them poke fun of Canada’s leaders inside the mag, as The Economist has been doing with our “Great Leader”, Silvio Berlusconi. Is it perhaps that the Brits take Canada just somewhat MORE seriously than the Bel Paese? Naw…
The three pictures were taken from three separate issues. The one regarding Berlusconi’s hair (or loss of it) regards an article from the science and technology section on hair loss, called “Hair today, hair tomorrow”. Now, you’d think that in order to back up their scientific findings, they would have perhaps used the image of some unknown fellow out there. But no, in order to poke fun and to rub in the fact that (many) Italians were just totally out of their minds for having voted for Silvio a record 3rd time (a few years back The Economist had put him on the front cover with the following warning: “Why this man is not fit to govern Italy”! Not even Bush, from what I recall, got nearly the same bad treatment vis-à-vis his invasion of Iraq). Also, The Economist usually has a tendency of depicting him as a clown when he smiles (to show just how seriously the mag and much of the civilized world actually takes the man. Which they really don’t).
Not the greatest publicity for Italy’s prime minister (nor for Italy and for those Italians who voted for him in the first place).
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