Opposition Blues

The front-page cartoon in Corriere Della Sera , Italy's leading daily, said it all. A scrum of center-left opposition figures — communists, reformers, party chairmen, union bosses — hoisted a man named Gianfranco Fini on their shoulders and shouted: finalmente un leader! Finally — but Fini is no center-left leader. He's head of the right-wing, "post-fascist" National Alliance Party, and Deputy Prime Minister in Silvio Berlusconi's governing coalition. The opposition can't stand Berlusconi, but they were feting his right-hand man because Fini had suggested that immigrants "who live, work and pay taxes in Italy" should be permitted to vote in local elections,...