I slid on over to the Wayne Madsen Report(I know, I know...considered generally "unreliable") and his headliner story is that "Democratic party sources" state that the Italian government of Romano Prodi (who squeeked a win from Mussolini, err, I mean Burlusconi in their last election) is investigating the possible role of Karl Rove and his group of GOP henchmen in advising Burlusconi's peeps on vote tampering. He also states that the Mexican opposition PRD party is also investigating this same collection for the same reasons.
The WMR states:
The sources report that investigators are looking at alleged technical and strategic advice given by Rove and GOP election tampering consultants to Silvio Berlusconi's government, particularly the arch-neo-cons in the Berlusconi Cabinet -- then Interior Minister Beppe Pisanu and Foreign Minister Ginafranco Fini. Although polls before the April 2006 election indicated that Prodi's Center-Left coalition was far ahead of Berlusconi's right-wing/neo-fascist alliance and exit polls also indicated a large Center-Left win, Prodi squeaked by with a mere 0.1 percent of the vote. Our sources claim that Rove and his Italian counterparts severely miscalculated in their planning for tampering with the Italian election returns. Rove and his advisers forgot to include the expatriate Italian vote in their calculations.
and
Some of the financial support for Republican interference in the Italian and Mexican elections may have been laundered through the U.S. taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy, which, in turn, funds the International Republican Institute (IRI), an arm of the Republican Party. The IRI has been involved in funding election campaigns in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez and in Haiti against Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Can anyone corroborate this in any way, shape, or form? It would be wonderful if true as the post also indicates that Italy may be close to issuing a "Red Notice" (an INTERPOL arrest warrant) on Rove. I am not claiming that WMR is a completely trustworthy/historically accurate site, but do find this post intriguing. And almost (OK, not almost, IS) too good to be true. With the German government putting out INTERPOL warrants on CIA agents for snatching German citizens for rendition and torture and Italy currently struggling to do the same thing on their end, it would be icing on the cake if Italy were to make it impossible for Rove to travel anywhere near Europe.
Any peeps on this anywhere else to suggest that there is any reality to it?