With Barack Obama showing the world what a world leader should be, Silvio Berlusconi embarrasses his country on a daily basis.
First he complimented Barack Obama's "tan", then he played hide and seek with the German leader. He has even annoyed the Queen by being too loud.
Now Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has held up the start of a key Nato summit - by talking for too long on his mobile phone.
In his defence, Mr Berlusconi was talking to Turkey's prime minister in a bid to resolve a row at the summit.
But Germany's leader was kept waiting on the red carpet for several minutes.
Angela Merkel had just led Nato leaders from Germany across a bridge straddling the River Rhine to meet President Nicolas Sarkozy coming from Strasbourg on the French side. Mr Berlusconi joined the group shortly afterwards. Mrs Merkel looked bemused as the Italian's call dragged on and finally opted to start the event's opening ceremony without the Italian.It turns out Silvio was trying to a resolve a dispute that got handled nicely by President Obama
It emerged later that Mr Berlusconi had been speaking to his Turkish counterpart in Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an attempt to persuade Turkey to drop its opposition to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as Nato's new chief. In the event, Turkey did concede, with Mr Erdogan saying it had been swayed by US President Barack Obama's assurances. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7983043.stm