What the credibility gap looks like in action

One of the Bush regime's staunchest supporters in the war on Iraq, the Berlusconi government, is rejecting the US version of the shooting of its agent Nicola Calipari. The Italian left's sudden celebration of a secret service agent (a type they have always been suspicious of, to say the least) as a national hero is of course hypocritical, merely a means to put pressure on the Berlusconi's rightwing government to withdraw from or at least reduce its commitment in Iraq. Even so, the effort is having marked success, not least because even the pope is getting in on the act.