In Italy, Loose Lips Don't Get Kissed

One female Forza Italia member of the House of Deputies, Iole Santelli, said, "Brava, Veronica -- she's speaking for all women who go out with their men only to have them looking at someone else." Katia Belillo of the Italian Communist Party said Berlusconi had offended his wife and all Italian women with his comments, "so he hurries to make excuses because he recognizes he was an imbecile," according to La Repubblica.

Massimo Cacciari, the mayor of Venice, said, "When they get to talking through newspapers and public letters, it's clear the story is over."

Cacciari has been on the receiving end of one of Berlusconi's dubious remarks: In 2002, during a news conference with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Berlusconi remarked on Rasmussen's good looks and added: "I'm thinking of introducing him to my wife. He's better-looking than Cacciari." That immediately fueled speculation about a secret link between Lario and the mayor.

Berlusconi has a history of making remarks many consider sexist.

When addressing Italian American businessmen in New York, he advised them to set up their businesses in Italy because "we have beautiful secretaries."

And his exuberance in 2005 after Parma was designated for the headquarters of the European Union food agency caused a diplomatic incident: He said it was his "playboy tactics" that had won over the Finnish president, Tarja Halonen. She was not amused.

Berlusconi, Italy's richest man, owns several fabulous villas in Italy and elsewhere. He spends most of his time in the Villa San Martino in Arcore, a suburb of Milan, while Lario and their three children seem to have spent most of their time in a nearby mansion. Berlusconi has two grown children from an earlier marriage.

Will she relent? In a return to character, she's not saying.