Abraham Lincoln was right: You can fool all the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Unfortunately, his dictum is irrelevant to modern Italian politics.

In a democratic country with a number of different parties, like Italy, you only have to fool about one-third of the people all the time to get and keep political power.

Silvio Berlusconi is making a comeback bid. Only eight months after the disgraced politician left the prime minister's office by the back entrance to avoid the jeers of hostile crowds (they sang "Hallelujah" instead when they heard he was gone), he is talking about a return to politics before the elections next spring.