'He Is Young, He Is Beautiful and He Is Tanned'

Geez, Silvio, why don't you hump the guy's leg while you're at it?

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi today fulsomely praised US election victor Barack Obama as young, beautiful and "tanned" and said the world saw him as a messiah.

"He is young, he is beautiful and he is tanned,'' Berlusconi said in Moscow's Kremlin, when asked how Obama might get along with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.

"I think that there is going to be good cooperation,'' Mr Berlusconi said.

Berlusconi warned that Obama, the United States' first black president, would have to deal with inflated expectations from a world that has portrayed Obama "almost as a messiah''.

"There are a lot of expectations that he should not disappoint,'' Berlusconi said.

This nonstop fawning over Obama is going to leave way too many people disappointed.