From William Pfaff’s The Irony of Manifest Destiny, page 197.
Luigi Barzini, an author and famous journalist who knew Mussolini, wrote: “He was perhaps the best popular journalist of his day in Italy, addressing himself not to the sober cultured minority but to the practically illiterate masses … Those very qualities that made him an excellent rabble-rousing editor made him a disastrous statesman: his intuitive and superficial intelligence; his capacity to over-simplify and dramatize; a day-to-day interest only in the most striking events; a strictly partisan point of view; the disregard for truth, accuracy, objectivity and consistency when they interfered with his aims; … an instinctive ability … to know what people wanted to be told … [Of course he] used deceit as a tool to govern with … All great statesmen have recourse to occasional distortions, misinterpretations and outright lies. Mussolini merely lied more than all other past statesmen, a little more than some of his contemporary competitors, less than Hitler anyway … He, too, believed his own slogans. He, too, was amazed by the fake statistics, thrilled by empty boasts, stirred to tears by his own oratory. He, too, confused appearances for reality …
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