As many of you know, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been indicted n charges of paying an under-age woman for sex and using his position to hide it. Lately, the whole ordeal has begun to sound eerily similar to the Tiger Woods scandal that rocked his personal life and career in late 2009 and early 2010.
It has become all too common for high-profile figures to pursue extramarital sexual relationships, almost to the point where it's easy to get callous - almost nothing is really surprising anymore. However, Prime Minister Berlusconi's story is in fact a tragic one. As seems to be a fairly common happening, Karima El Marhough, the woman Berlusconi is alleged to have slept with told him that she was 24 when she was in fact 17. Despite this, it is very difficult to vindicate Berlusconi at all. His career, especially recently has been blighted by allegations that he has engaged in inappropriate relations with women in the past, including one 18 year old daughter of his friend.
In April, Prime Minister Berlusconi will go to trial and the issues currently discussed will be formally brought to a head. But I would like to comment briefly on the actions that have put Prime Minister Berlusconi in this situation in the first place. I'll admit that the Prime Minister looks very guilty, or at the least, not completely innocent. But giving him the benefit of the doubt, it is evident that the Prime Minister jettisoned prudence in his relationship with El Marhough. In the light of previous sex scandals, one would expect that Berlusconi approach every subsequent relationship with an orientation towards chastity and sexual integrity. Obviously he has failed to do so, and ultimately, even if by some strange set of events is innocent, he has truly brought this tragedy upon himself.
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