Monday, September 27, 2010

Hyperbole

A year ago, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi described himself as the most persecuted person "in the entire history of the world". [BBC News 9 October 2010]

Clearly it's an important question: "Who is the most persecuted man in history?" And can you find a search engine that doesn't answer "Berlusconi"?

Let's try a similar question: America's most persecuted minority? Apparently either Big Business (Ayn Rand) or tobacco smokers. It's a good thing we have search engines to help us investigate such important questions.

So that led me to a third question: Does Big Businessman Berlusconi smoke? That question led me to an op-ed piece comparing Berlusconi's vices with those of President Obama [Maureen Dowd, Vice and Spice, NYTimes 23 June 2009]. Obama has admitted to a smoking habit; Berlusconi apparently admitted to paying millions of Euros to judges, before hastily correcting himself. No smokescreen without fire Silvio.

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