Ah, December — apparently the season for throwing things at elected leaders. A year after President Bush ducked a shoe tossed at him by an Iraqi journalist, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was assaulted by a small souvenir model of the Milan Cathedral (which looks like it’d really hurt).
Visible Measures has charted the spread of more than 900 clips of the incident since Sunday night, which taken together have topped 6 million views.
In the same period of time last year, Bush’s quick reflexes had gone viral to the tune of 10 million-plus views, but the reason for that is fairly evident. While Bush ducking was documented by one well-placed camera, the attack on Berlusconi was caught by a number of different ones, albeit not very clearly; the AP’s mashup of footage is mostly shouting crowds and shots of the aftermath. Just goes to show that you can point a dozen cameras at one spot and still not get the money shot.
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