Entry 5:

Today's itinerary: Rome, Italy

The Eternal City, the ultimate Adult Theme Park. I will not yammer on about the glories of Rome, present or past (the latter, dicey for an American)—or about the fact that, contrary to the popular British analogy, America is Greece, not Rome. (Britain, which styles itself Greece, used to be Rome and is now Gaul, though divided into four parts.) No, there is important business to transact: I am to meet with Sergio Cofferati, the leader of CGIL, Italy's largest and most powerful labor union and the man who has emerged as Berlusconi's most effective opponent.

There are several elements to the Cofferati story that are astonishing to an American. First is the nature of his union. There are 5.4 million members. Half of them are retirees, many of whom never were labor union members during their working lives. The elderly are organized in Italy. This is a terrifying thought. In America, we merely have a senior citizens lobby—the American Association of Retired Persons, informally known as the greedy geezers—and they get pretty much anything they want. In Italy, they get more. It is generally agreed that the pension system will soon bankrupt the country.

The second astonishing element is the issue upon which Cofferati has challenged Berlusconi. There is a bit of the labor law—it is called Article 18—that essentially prevents the firing of workers in companies with more than 15 employees. If, for example, Giovanni the welder has taken up the unfortunate habit of napping on the job, you probably have to go to court to get rid of him. Consequently, there is a fair amount of napping—or the moral equivalent of same—going on in Italy. Berlusconi proposed the teeniest of changes to the law: Companies with 15 employees who wanted to add more would not have to abide by Article 18.

Cofferati's reaction was a rather stagey outrage. He would not stand by as the rights of workers were trampled. He called a general strike. He called a massive mobilization of left-center supporters. Millions participated. It was generally agreed that the symbolism of the campaign was far more important than the issue at stake: If Cofferati could stop Berlusconi on this most microscopic of clauses, he might stop Berlusconi on really important things.

The outcome remains unclear. But, at the very least, someone has finally managed to beat Berlusconi at his own game: Cofferati had the simpler slogan. "I will defend your job," he said. Berlusconi was left with the complicated, abstract notion that a less restrictive labor market would lead to a stronger economy. (Salesmen detest having to tout a complicated, abstract product.) Berlusconi—whose campaign slogans tended to be of the "lower taxes, higher pensions" variety—had been caught on the wrong side of grammar, trapped in a compound sentence.

In person, Cofferati is elegant and impossible. He sits in a lovely office, surrounded by modern art, overlooking the Borghese Museum and gardens. He has the sort of perfectly arranged hair and precisely clipped beard that probably needs daily work by a flying squad of tonsorial specialists. He is wearing a dark suit, a pale-green checked shirt with a button-down spread collar, a dark-blue tie with matching suspenders. He speaks slowly, calmly. With even the slightest movement, he emits a refreshing zephyr of talcum smell into the air. I find myself able to note all of these details because he says practically nothing of value. I ask about Berlusconi. "I have nothing to say about Berlusconi," he says. I ask about the economic consequences of his position on labor flexibility. The problem isn't labor flexibility, he says, it is the failure of companies to spend more money on research and development. (Could this be because they're spending so much on napping laborers? I wonder.)

I ask about the right-wing political tide across Europe, and here he says something mildly interesting: "The progressive forces in Europe are paying a high price for their support of a European Union that has emphasized the market aspects and not paid enough attention to social inequalities." (This is similar to what the left intellectuals told me in France: Is it possible that the left will now begin to place more emphasis on the EU as a heartless, free-market bureaucracy?)

But that's about as good as it gets. He's about to leave his union position. Almost everyone believes he will enter politics, the candidate of the left wing of the center-left coalition. He will not confirm this. After 26 years, he is returning to work at Pirelli. Unfortunately, his old job—inspecting the coating on wires—no longer exists. He will work in a corporate foundation, doing worthy things. (Translation: He's running.)

As I exit the office, quite depressed, my semifunctional mobile phone rings, and there is surprising news: Berlusconi will see me.