Silvio Beruscloni's meeting with George Bush is a real cui bono moment. The safe money is that it is the Italian prime minister; that Bush is in effect repaying him for the Italian troop presence in post-war Iraq before the country has its April general election.
Then you remember the rule of thumb that the closer western European leaders get to elections, the less likely they will want to be photographed with Mr Bush. When the US president came to Europe in February last year (when even Spain's Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero made an albeit rebuffed attempt to engage Mr Bush after an EU leader photocall) his decision not to include a visit to Britain on his itinerary was widely seen as a pre-election favour to Tony Blair.
Still, it's probably still Silvio who gets the better part of the deal. Aside from making him look taller, there is no conceivable way that breakfasting with Mr Beruscloni could boost Mr Bush's stature. Like the Peter Stringfellow of the international scene, you have to wonder why anyone would associate with the Italian leader out of choice. Or in the case of Mr Blair, holidaying as his guest.
An interview with Newsweek to mark the White House breakfast (the weekly magazine is clearly impressed with its snare, pointing out that Mr Beruscloni "openly despises the Italian press, mistrusts foreign journalists" but spent 90 minutes chatting with its correspondents "over cappuccinos") suggests he is trying to have it both ways. The meeting with Mr Bush is not just there to be traded on for glory, he will also tell Mr Bush to let Vladimir Putin negotiate with the Palestinian Hamas government and set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. It might appeal to some Italian voters, but is unlikely to do much to influence Mr Bush.
The Beruscloni camp thinking is probably less to do with what will be said than what will make it into the news. This is a man whose electoral strategy apppears to be to hog as much of the media spotlight as he can, thereby denying it to his opponent. You have to wonder why else he would have compared himself to Napoleon one day and Jesus Christ the next (unless he really does have both a Christ and Napoleon complex) so soon after announcing he was abstaining from sex until the election.
He uses the interview to deny these reports as misrepresentations of his actual comments, but cannot resist a bit of name-dropping when he deals with the no-sex-before-voting reports.
"Naturally, many of my friends were concerned," Berlusconi told Newsweek, "to the point that Putin called me and said that both he and Bush were very worried about me."
The real depressing thing about this is that Romano Prodi, his centre-left challenger, a former Italian PM and former European commissioner, is not exactly the kind of man to lead an inspiring challenge. It is enough to make you feel thankful not to be Italian.
