The anticipations of Bruno Vespa’s book look like fuses that burn slowly and explode in the wrong moment. The effect is exhilarating. For example, Gianfranco Fini’s judgement on Silvio Berlusconi, who confused the leadership with an absolute monarchy arrived a couple of days ago, but the two soon explained themselves.

But they just promised not to punch each other. So the launch of the book with Fini’s expression, created new disagreement. And Vespa specified: “The times in which Fini pronounced those words were different, now they have been clarified”. We asked ourselves what did hey clarify, without finding an answer. We should imagine this clarifying meeting, which took place maybe during a dinner between the starters and the first course.

Silvio Berlusconi swore he did not feel like an absolute monarch and Fini accepted his words and in exchange asked to be consulted on important decisions. Or Gianfranco Fini explained that he did not mean what he said, because he was talking about caesarism and his words were misunderstood. The books that deal with politics have one Achilles heel: they do not arrive the day after, so Bruno Vespa sacrifices the peaceful cohabitation of the co-founders of the Pdl in order to launch his book. Berlusconi and Fini are aware of that and make the best of a bad thing, because Porta a Porta wants its part and they must give it.

The impressive thing is what comes from newspapers when the after-effect remark arrives. Instead of placing it in its exact time reference, they offer it to the public as if it were new.

Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute