Silvio Berlusconi Greets Michelle Obama: Come To Padre! (PHOTOS, POLL)

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was certainly happy to see First Lady Michelle Obama on Thursday night at the G-20 dinner, and greeted her with some come-to-padre hand motions as Barack kept a close eye. Click through the play-by-play, and tell us which gestures are appropriate and which are crossing the line.

See what other world leaders and their wives were wearing on the G-20 arrival red carpet.

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Comments

[Luisa Ciffolilli]

02:13 PM on 11/14/2009

What a shame!

[Cow Corner Cathedral]

09:27 PM on 10/03/2009

Shoulda kicked the MF in the nads.

For all those "at least Silvio's honest" types, perhaps you've already forgotten that you took that tack with Yeltsin, and it hasn't exactly benefited Russia or our relationship with it. Fact is, the banal often prepares the wave for more state control. Russia again.

BHO should call him out over the fact that Italy has reneged on last meet-ups G8 promises for aid to Africa. How many remember that it was Mussolini that expounded that fascism is the union of State and corporate interest?

[yearlin]

12:43 PM on 09/29/2009

POTUS has a tude

[chayefsky]

02:55 AM on 09/29/2009

LOL! Does anyone want to take a guess at what Pres. Obama's thinking?

[Bafun]

12:05 AM on 09/29/2009

can you believe this?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6852051.ece

[Primonemo]

07:11 AM on 09/28/2009

Hello word, hello american people!
I am Italian, i live in best metropolitan city, Milan
Belive to me, here in Italy all people are not supporting Silvio Berlusconi, he is an outlaw!
we are ashamed of him
he creates bad image of Italy
he is a criminal
he robs Italy of its economic wealth
he and corrupt politicians like him have created a system of laws designed to protect him (look at wikipedia.org Silvio Berlusconi and you will find information that will confirm any Italian! S.B. is tacit dictator, an example: by 2 years, we have the army in major cities because they do not want to increase the police force in...do you know what it mean?), during summer of 2009 S.B. was suspected of pedophilia and for that reason his wife left him, his wife has also said that he is sick of omnipotence.
Forgive us, we as true Italians are trying to do everything to remove it from the government, we Italians are truly educated, we have a romantic style, but we are lovers of education as well as diplomatic label.
Please, you must not imagine or interpret Italy as: mafia, rudeness and corruption.
Italy is a country of culture, art, diplomacy, law, liberty, life style, Ferrari, Armani, Dolce Gabbana, etc etc
As Italian sincere, I apologize and I hope that your president can ignore the vulgarity of S.B.
Long live to democracy, long live to freedom, long live to the peace

[wish4change]

07:51 PM on 09/27/2009

OMG! By 2012 If Mrs. Obama keeps ballooning the way she has since entering the white house , it will be twice what she weighs right now and her "gorgeous" arms and legs will tell the story. Sorry honey, you're entering middle age, where hormones dictate what our bodies will look like as we go forward.

[ItHasToBeSaid]

08:20 PM on 09/27/2009

You're reaching. And grabbing nothing.

[janie@atthelake]

09:17 PM on 09/27/2009

its the white house pie. Heard Obama say (maybe about 3 weeks ago) that was one thing they were trying to avoid..Best pie in the world.
She'll get it together.

[thelipstickfemme]

07:39 PM on 09/27/2009

I Looked at the video on you tube and he really should have not been waving his hands before your was about to shake her hand. It was off putting to be honest and the photo exaggerated it more.

He was doing some macho stuff here. He did not do that to the President.

Prez Obama was clearly put off by what he did (all those hand flying about). Disrespectful.

[Bluejay00234]

07:05 PM on 09/27/2009

Creep.

[swimviking]

05:41 PM on 09/27/2009

I LOVE the way she towers over him!

Berlusconi is such a jerk.

[atjewell]

03:06 PM on 09/27/2009

though i do believe berlusconi is quite the pig, i must say that after watching the video footage of this encounter, i don't think he was being one in this particular instance. i lived in italy for nearly two years and the gesture he was giving is one that means, "wow, look at you, you look beautiful." when looking particularly good, male and FEMALE italian friends of mine would give me the very same gesture and face. it is a compliment, not lurid lust. maybe what's really inappropriate is that he is a head of state giving such a reaction to another head of state's wife, precisely at a time when he has been under great scrutiny in his own country for sexism and marital infidelity. not the smartest move by silivo. nonetheless, hand gestures and facial expressions are a huge part of everyday italian communication. in fact, when i moved back to the states, my american friends made fun of how much i talked with my hands... the photos give a very different impression of what was at pay than the video. check it out for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynWmD5LR5hg

[ItHasToBeSaid]

06:25 PM on 09/27/2009

You're right. I watched the video and found that he was actually far more respectful than the pictures and the exaggerated headline would suggest. Huffpost (and many of the bloggers in the style section) LOVE to read into the Obamas' pictures, which record a FRACTION of second, and blow them up into a non-story. Anything for clicks, I suppose . . .

[mazzetta]

02:59 PM on 09/27/2009

check this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPDvpTTRUhI

mr Berlusconi comes back to Italy and opens his party's meeting joking about the Obamas, echoing an older gaffe, he says Michelle has gone sunbathing together with Barack, 'because she's tanned too...

[atjewell]

03:16 PM on 09/27/2009

so what is the issue here? when i looked at this photo, i too noticed that michelle and barack have both tanned. summer did just pass. they did vacation in sunny places. what exactly is the problem with him saying that? is it the the earlier comment he made about barack's tan? it was a good-natured joke. having lived in italy, i can tell you that these folks are obsessed with tanning: they routinely go to tanning salons during the winter and they live on the beach, often slathered in oil, during the summers. when i went to the beach and sunbathed, many an italians commented on how they wished they could be my color. my friends always complimented my naturally brown skin and joked about their envy. it's irresponsible to criticize a person's comments without putting them in the proper cultural context. i sense that you are hinting at racism here, and while i certainly believe that italians discriminate, the overwhelming majority of it that i noticed was against albanians, southern italians (i was in milan) and some eastern europeans. blacks experienced discrimination as well, but not nearly as viscerally or and strongly as these other groups. i hate to generalize, but my general impression was that many italians have a sort of fascination with various black cultures (music, dance), which has it's own problems, but is certainly not what we americans understand as race based discrimination...

[mazzetta]

04:07 PM on 09/27/2009

you may be right with Italian loving sunbaths, but mayb you miss how and how much a prime minister should avoid this kind of jokes
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5joBM5bqAyKN5_kjGMpZi7LHzj9Bg

in a few hours the whole world is laughing at him, you can ceck with a search engine

he's struggling in order to survive and he's often out of taste and measure, following in his speach he addressed the opposition as burning US' and Israel'a flags and chanting for the Italian soldiers' slaughter in Afghanistan, that obviously is not

he's furiosly attacking any opponent, trying to close hostile TV shows while occupying media with tons of bs and lies, he's appeared unattended to a Russia-Turkey celebration for a pipeline claiming he was the maker of, he's going far from Europe because he's giving responsability of his many faults to the UE, and you think we could be really impressed by his poor jokes on tanned OBams?

It's just that it's astonishing to see how the whole media system laughs about him, how his collegues run away from him while the Italian ruling class, nor the people, are able to answer his subversion and unseat him, let's see how many stupid jokes we'll listen to before something will change

[SgtLucifer]

11:25 AM on 09/27/2009

From the grapevine: Silvio Berlusconi will be cast in the upcoming "Godfather IV".
- - Guess which role he will be playing

[kbella]

10:51 AM on 09/27/2009

This is actually huge news in Italy (to all of you who are saying that HP is exaggerating). What they actually left out if that Michelle Obama actually embraced all of the other countries' leaders (hugs, face kisses). Berlusconi is the ONLY one she offered her hand to. It was deliberate. All of my Italian in-laws are incredibly embarrassed by his behavior.

[HoosierRadical]

01:29 AM on 09/27/2009

In that first photo, President Obama is looking at Berlusconi like he is ready to go up side his head if he he crosses the line. LOL That is the same look Joe Wilson got.