How Italy Views the U.S. Election
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
TWEEDLEDEE AND TWEEDLEDUM How Italy Views the U. S. Election By Silvio F. Senigallia Rome When I returned to my native Italy several years after the end of World War II, it was not the...
...There is little chance of a sudden move toward isolationism or any other dramatic initiative...
...Sometimes they indulged in a bit of wishful thinking...
...According to Father di Giacomo, Scorsese was guilty of several "sins," among them his cultural limitations, the poverty of the language in his film and the stupidity of the symbols he employed...
...Many Italians viewed the KennedyNikita S. Khrushchev-John XXIII trio as the harbinger of a peaceful and prosperous future...
...So it is conjectured that he will be less military-minded than Bush and more concerned with addressing the decline in American industrial power relative to the rest of the world...
...The newspaper claimed that thus far in the campaign it was impossible to discern a serious distinction between Governor Dukakis' "international features" and those of Vice President Bush...
...During the period 1960-63, intellectuals and liberal joumalists in this country fell hook, line and sinker for the looks, poise and charm of John F. Kennedy...
...Presidential election, mainly because they do not expect much to change regardless of who wins...
...election among Italians may in a sense be justified...
...The severest criticism here of the Presidential candidates has come from this country's intellectual community...
...After all, American public opinion and global circumstances have determined a course for Washington's foreign policy that is unlikely to be modified significantly in the near future...
...To prove the point they cite George Bush's harping on his "experience" rather than anything substantive, and Michael S. Dukakis' reluctance to challenge the international and military record chalked up by the Reagan Administration lest he be accused of softness...
...They seem convinced that foreign policy is not a real issue in the campaign...
...Government officials here have carefully avoided taking sides in the American Presidential contest—partly out of diplomacy, partly out of genuine uncertainty as to which contender would best suit Italy's interests...
...Over the past two decades, though, the Italian media's interest in U. S. politics has gradually waned...
...The first of the two Presidential debates, telecast by the Italian state network with a simultaneous translation that left much to be desired, did nothing to increase enthusiasm for either candidate...
...Bush's political thinking, some observers have pointed out, matured in the years when his nation's clout in the international arena was largely a matter of its military might...
...Not only did Italian pundits and politically-minded citizens closely follow the nomination struggles and the energetic campaigns that ensued, they also tended to root for oneof thecandidates —invariably the Democrat...
...Therefore, they argue, the Vice President can be expected to make U.S...
...As for the man in the street, he is too interested in domestic events that have a direct bearing on his pocket book to take much notice of what is going on across the Atlantic—foreign developments are no longer as vital to him as they were when he did not have it so good...
...Silvio F. Senigallia reports regularly for The New Leader on Italian affairs...
...Similarly, Ronald Reagan's successor, whoever he is, will be constrained to navigate between hardliners pressing for a tough stance toward Moscow and liberals taken with Mikhail S. Gorbachev's "new thinking...
...Presidential elections were given rather extensive coverage by the press here...
...A couple of months ago, for example, oneGianni Vattimo wrote on the cultural page of the Fiat-owned Turin daily La Stampa that "before the crude, sectarian, violent, and gullible America of today, we Italians must feel proud of our Catholic, Jesuit, Baroque heritage/'Afewweeks later, Il Messaggero, a Rome daily that consistently backs Bettino Craxi's Socialists, ran a hatchet job on Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, written by Filippo di Giacomo, professor of cultural anthropology at the Pontifical University...
...Italian newspapers, basing their judgment on poll results from the American press, gave Dukakis a slight edge over Bush, albeit not enough of one to turn the race around...
...Both candidates were deemed excessively cautious, with the Massachusetts Governor especially disappointing many Italians by his failure to take up the banner of even a moderate liberalism...
...Neither Bush nor Dukakis impressed viewers as having the strength of character they like to see in an American President...
...Bush's perceived hawkishness disturbs some, whereas others are more bothered by the possibility that Dukakis' vaguely expressed economic policies might reflect protectionist leanings...
...For instance, the Italian press so idolized Adlai E. Stevenson—who because of his intellectual mien was often compared by Europeans to Pierre Mendès-France —that it predicted victory for him both in 1952 and '56, despite the fact that anyone who cared to pick up an American newspaper knew that Dwight D. Eisenhower was the overwhelming favorite in both elections...
...Such an attitude, of course, grossly underestimates the impact of personality and of Presidential appointments on the conduct of foreign policy...
...No wonder, then, that for the first 15-odd postwar years the U.S...
...Consequently, it said, America's allies have no real grounds for favoring one candidate or the other...
...Still, Italians tend to oversimplify matters in imagining that Bush and Dukakis are as alike as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, or that a Dukakis Administration would be distinguishable from a Bush Administration merely by its stand on the Pledge of Allegiance...
...Once again," the Professor wrote, "an American makes the world and history over in his image and likeness...
...Not even the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle dented the Kennedy image...
...Presidential race in Italy—and across Western Europe, for that matter—was clearly put by Rome's influential daily La Repubblica in a recent front-page article entitled "Europe is Not Rooting for Either Dukakis or Bush...
...The widespread lack of interest in the U.S...
...These two examples pretty much typify the present attitude of the Italian intellectual class toward the culture and politics oftheUnited States...
...The La Repubblica article went on to note the efforts of frustrated "U.S.A.watchers" to guess the "imperial philosophies" tacitly held by the candidates from such clues as their background and age...
...The prevailing outlook on the U.S...
...TWEEDLEDEE AND TWEEDLEDUM How Italy Views the U. S. Election By Silvio F. Senigallia Rome When I returned to my native Italy several years after the end of World War II, it was not the fifth greatest industrial power in the world, as it is now...
...And this year the policymakers and commentators appear particularly relaxed about the outcome of the U.S...
...Dukakis, on the other hand, is seen as having politically come of age at a time when the United States was first temporarily stymied in Korea and then defeated in Vietnam...
...The idea of a direct confrontation between leading political opponents, something yet to be tried here, aroused the curiosity of Italians, resulting in a considerable audience...
...JFK's aura extended to his brother Robert, and now in the eyes of Italians surrounds the younger generation of Kennedy politicians...
...Moreover, sensational as the country's economic recovery ultimately proved to be, it wouldn't have been possible without the assistance received from the United States in the form of the Marshall Plan and other foreign aid, not to mention American military protection...
...Indeed, one can imagine the election of a second Thomas Jefferson on November 8 being cried down as evidence of provincialism and cultural deficiency...
...That is scarcely surprising, however, since the Italian clerisy tends to be down on all things American these days...
...The consensus was that Dukakis came of f as a better debater than Bush, though somewhat less likable...
...security his top priority irrespective of the Kremlin's apparent warming toward the West...
Vol. 71 • October 1988 • No. 18
