His face drawn and pale despite the heavy pancake makeup, Senator Silvio Berlusconi addressed the Italian people in a video message in which he promised, "I will always be with you." The video was released on Wednesday, shortly after a 16-member Senate commission in Rome voted to strip the former Premier of his Senate status on grounds of his conviction in August by the Cassations court, Italy's highest, for tax fraud. At any rate, he declared, "I am absolutely innocent" and, despite the "planned aggression of the judges," it is possible to be a politician even if not in Parliament. Most importantly, however, in the video--which by all accounts was revised again and again before its release--he did not indicate that his "Freedom Party" (Partito della Liberta', PdL) would throw Italy into chaotic instability and new elections by its exit from the government.
