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How and to what extent compared to the leaders of other Western countries? Take the United States, for example. Clinton? George W.? Trump? Biden? And I leave ou

How and to what extent compared to the leaders of other Western countries? Take the United States, for example. Clinton? George W.? Trump? Biden? And I leave out Obama because he has a cleaner (but not immaculate) profile than the others just mentioned. Are Italian prime ministers more scandalous than French (take Sarkozy, to cite a recent example) or British (Boris Johnson anyone?) prime ministers? More recent Italian prime ministers include Mario Monti, Mario Draghi, Romano Prodi, Giuseppe Conte, all politicians and bureaucrats who may or may not be liked, but with a much higher personal and public profile than many of their counterparts in the Western world. Please let's stop with silly, and frankly annoying, stereotypes.

lormayna 3y ago
Mario Draghi was a world class economist and he had top role in institution like Bank italia and Bce. Mario Monti and Romano Prodi as well was high profile economists. Giuseppe Conte, instead, was a faceless lawyer that was invested as PM for an agreement between parties, he was neither candidate at the election. Comparing him with the others it's just an offense against them.
- borroka 3y ago
  One thing I teach my kids is that you don't read what you want to read, but what the other person writes. And comment on the latter. In this case, the other person (me), wrote, with reference to the "scandalous profile" of many Italian PMs: "all politicians and bureaucrats who may or may not be liked, but with a much higher personal and public profile than many of their counterparts in the Western world." I did not mention their political stature, but their personal and public profile. Giuseppe Conte, who was a nobody before he got the role of PM (which, for those unfamiliar with the Italian Constitution, must be elected by Parliament, it is not as if he was a self-candidate. In Italy, PMs are not elected by the people, but by the members of the Senate and Parliament, so there was nothing strange, the same was true for Monti and Draghi, while Prodi was the leader of a coalition that got the majority of votes/seats), he was a full professor of Private Law (not just a "lawyer") at the University of Florence and LUISS University in Rome (one of the very few private universities in Italy), and he had a number of quite relevant (for Italy) board positions. A profile fairly common among politicians. As far as I know, his private life was not scandalous at all. He was far from having the international profile of Monti, Draghi or Prodi, but both his personal life and tenure as premier were not scandalous at all (and arguably better than the terrible tenure of Mario Monti). PS, I did not vote for him or support him, and I consider him among the best and brightest.
  - lormayna 3y ago
    Conte was cheating on his public CV, claiming to had spent time as professor in several US universities, but there was no any evidences of that. He was a lawyer close to the NoVax environment (Stamina case) and a very mediocre university professor (I am from Florence and several of my friends can confirm this detail) You cannot not even compare him with someone that was president of BCE and with academic PhD at MIT like Mario Draghi or with someone that was Rector of Bocconi (probably the best university in Europe for economic studies) and European Commissioner. Almost nobody knows him before being a puppet in the agreement between M5S and Lega. And his experience as PM was worst than terrible: the yellow-green government was the worst government in the history of Italy and with him as PM we had the higher number of deaths for COVID in Europe, the harder lockdown and the biggest impact in the econony.
    - borroka 3y ago
      Once again, you want to read into my words what you want to read and not what I wrote. Conte wrote in his CV that he had been a visiting professor/scholar at some foreign universities, while it appeared that he had only visited universities (a curious case was at the University of Vienna, where he said he had spent time as a visiting professor, instead he went there for English classes). In the online resume he made available when he was a professor and had just begun his political career, he also claimed to be a follower of Padre Pio of Petralcina (I am going from memory here). All rather ridiculous, but largely inoffensive. I wrote that his profile was not even comparable to that of Monti and Draghi (despite my dislike of techno-euro-bureaucrats). You wrote, "Almost nobody knows him before being a puppet in the agreement between M5S and Lega." Here you are wrong: not "almost no one" but "no one" knew him. But the fact that he was a puppet is contradicted by his quick takeover of the M5S reins. His experience as premier has been average, which was partly surprising, since he is far from being a political talent (I don't know about his tenure), but it is hard to see today (after Monti, unfortunately, since he was a "big name" he was given leeway that turned out to be disastrous) catastrophic leadership: there is a very narrow corridor defined by the EU along which a European government can walk. Your commentary seems to me to be overall infused with bitterness (Stamina and the NoVax movement have nothing in common, apart from some weirdos who manage to jump from one conspiracy to another) and broad strokes that are not conducive to reasoned conversation. If Conte, whom I repeat I did not vote for, do not like, etc., is to be condemned, what to make of former German premiers Schroeder and Merkel, whose pro-Russian leadership and sentiment-based policy of open borders caused humanitarian and financial disasters? What about Sarkozy and his bombing of Libya? What about Boris Johnson and his dastardly decisions during the pandemic? What about Sanna Marin and his parties in the very first months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine? The decisions made by his government may or may not be to your liking, but at the European level there have been, in the consequences of government actions, many worse leaderships.
hulitu 3y ago
Yes but "theguardian = high quality journalism" . /s

lormayna 3y ago

Mario Draghi was a world class economist and he had top role in institution like Bank italia and Bce. Mario Monti and Romano Prodi as well was high profile economists. Giuseppe Conte, instead, was a faceless lawyer that was invested as PM for an agreement between parties, he was neither candidate at the election. Comparing him with the others it's just an offense against them.

borroka 3y ago
One thing I teach my kids is that you don't read what you want to read, but what the other person writes. And comment on the latter. In this case, the other person (me), wrote, with reference to the "scandalous profile" of many Italian PMs: "all politicians and bureaucrats who may or may not be liked, but with a much higher personal and public profile than many of their counterparts in the Western world." I did not mention their political stature, but their personal and public profile. Giuseppe Conte, who was a nobody before he got the role of PM (which, for those unfamiliar with the Italian Constitution, must be elected by Parliament, it is not as if he was a self-candidate. In Italy, PMs are not elected by the people, but by the members of the Senate and Parliament, so there was nothing strange, the same was true for Monti and Draghi, while Prodi was the leader of a coalition that got the majority of votes/seats), he was a full professor of Private Law (not just a "lawyer") at the University of Florence and LUISS University in Rome (one of the very few private universities in Italy), and he had a number of quite relevant (for Italy) board positions. A profile fairly common among politicians. As far as I know, his private life was not scandalous at all. He was far from having the international profile of Monti, Draghi or Prodi, but both his personal life and tenure as premier were not scandalous at all (and arguably better than the terrible tenure of Mario Monti). PS, I did not vote for him or support him, and I consider him among the best and brightest.
- lormayna 3y ago
  Conte was cheating on his public CV, claiming to had spent time as professor in several US universities, but there was no any evidences of that. He was a lawyer close to the NoVax environment (Stamina case) and a very mediocre university professor (I am from Florence and several of my friends can confirm this detail) You cannot not even compare him with someone that was president of BCE and with academic PhD at MIT like Mario Draghi or with someone that was Rector of Bocconi (probably the best university in Europe for economic studies) and European Commissioner. Almost nobody knows him before being a puppet in the agreement between M5S and Lega. And his experience as PM was worst than terrible: the yellow-green government was the worst government in the history of Italy and with him as PM we had the higher number of deaths for COVID in Europe, the harder lockdown and the biggest impact in the econony.
  - borroka 3y ago
    Once again, you want to read into my words what you want to read and not what I wrote. Conte wrote in his CV that he had been a visiting professor/scholar at some foreign universities, while it appeared that he had only visited universities (a curious case was at the University of Vienna, where he said he had spent time as a visiting professor, instead he went there for English classes). In the online resume he made available when he was a professor and had just begun his political career, he also claimed to be a follower of Padre Pio of Petralcina (I am going from memory here). All rather ridiculous, but largely inoffensive. I wrote that his profile was not even comparable to that of Monti and Draghi (despite my dislike of techno-euro-bureaucrats). You wrote, "Almost nobody knows him before being a puppet in the agreement between M5S and Lega." Here you are wrong: not "almost no one" but "no one" knew him. But the fact that he was a puppet is contradicted by his quick takeover of the M5S reins. His experience as premier has been average, which was partly surprising, since he is far from being a political talent (I don't know about his tenure), but it is hard to see today (after Monti, unfortunately, since he was a "big name" he was given leeway that turned out to be disastrous) catastrophic leadership: there is a very narrow corridor defined by the EU along which a European government can walk. Your commentary seems to me to be overall infused with bitterness (Stamina and the NoVax movement have nothing in common, apart from some weirdos who manage to jump from one conspiracy to another) and broad strokes that are not conducive to reasoned conversation. If Conte, whom I repeat I did not vote for, do not like, etc., is to be condemned, what to make of former German premiers Schroeder and Merkel, whose pro-Russian leadership and sentiment-based policy of open borders caused humanitarian and financial disasters? What about Sarkozy and his bombing of Libya? What about Boris Johnson and his dastardly decisions during the pandemic? What about Sanna Marin and his parties in the very first months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine? The decisions made by his government may or may not be to your liking, but at the European level there have been, in the consequences of government actions, many worse leaderships.

hulitu 3y ago

Yes but "theguardian = high quality journalism" . /s