Consigliere = eminence grise?

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HelloThere was an article recently about Alberto Gonzales in Newsweek which is still readable here: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6872900/site/newsweek/, and I'm trying to get a grip on the use of "consigliere" in that article. The definition of the AHD4 mentions that "consigliere" is often used in the context of organized crime. Now, Newsweek might not be in total agreement with Mr. Bush's policies but I have difficulty believing that the implied comparison is between the President of the USA and a "capo". Or is it? Is it something else, like a jocular reference or some sort of journalese? And I'm wondering whether translating "consigliere" into French as "éminence grise" a powerful adviser, but one without an official position would be a good idea. Isabelle Cecchini

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[nq:1]There was an article recently about Alberto Gonzales in Newsweek which is still readable here: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6872900/site/newsweek/, and I'm trying to ... translating "consigliere" into French as "éminence grise" a powerful adviser, but one without an official position would be a good idea.[/nq]
As Americans understand "consigliere" (through movies, the books of Mario Puzo etc.) this person is the most senior member of a Mafia family who is not personally a criminal (murderer, extortionist, thief etc.), thus both personally aloof from partisan strife within a Mafia family and free to circulate in public life, often as a lawyer.

Newsweek called Gonzales "the president?s longtime consigliere" meaning he has long served as Bush's personal legal adviser. The commonly understood American meaning of consigliere is a non-criminal member of a criminal conspiracy, so this use of the term looks like deliberate slander. But it appeared in a signed column of comment, to which news story rules may not apply, also described as "web exclusive" (meaing unprinted?) I doubt there is more to this than casual unthinking language, albeit of a type Newsweek would not have tolerated in print
20 years ago.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

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[nq:1]As Americans understand "consigliere" (through movies, the books of Mario Puzo etc.) this person is the most senior member of ... of consigliere is a non-criminal member of a criminal conspiracy, so this use of the term looks like deliberate slander.[/nq]
It's not slander if it's obviously not intended to be taken literally, since no one would consequently believe that the man is a member of a criminal conspiracy. It could well have been intentional disrespect, however. Mike Hardy

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[nq:2]There was an article recently about Alberto Gonzales in Newsweek ... but one without an official position would be a good idea.[/nq]
[nq:1]As Americans understand "consigliere" (through movies, the books of Mario Puzo etc.) this person is the most senior member of ... to this than casual unthinking language, albeit of a type Newsweek would not have tolerated in print 20 years ago.[/nq]
It sounds brutally deliberate to me. And appropriate.

Mike.

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[nq:2]There was an article recently about Alberto Gonzales in Newsweek ... but one without an official position would be a good idea.[/nq]
[nq:1]As Americans understand "consigliere" (through movies, the books of Mario Puzo etc.) this person is the most senior member of ... of consigliere is a non-criminal member of a criminal conspiracy, so this use of the term looks like deliberate slander.[/nq]
It might be, if this writer were the first to use it in a non-criminal context. But at this late date it's no more than a completely innocuous and faintly jocular journalistic cliché, along with other pseudo-Mafia terms popularized by the Godfather movies and The Sopranos. It certainly, at least by itself, doesn't automatically indicate that the writer doesn't approve of Bush or Gonzales.

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[nq:1]Hello There was an article recently about Alberto Gonzales in Newsweek which is still readable here: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6872900/site/newsweek/, and I'm trying to get a grip on the use of "consigliere" in that article.[/nq]
Issa lika dissa; ya getta coupla kika ragazzi badda mouta da President is all.
[nq:1]The definition of the AHD4 mentions that "consigliere" is often used in the context of organized crime. Now, Newsweek might ... translating "consigliere" into French as "éminence grise" a powerful adviser, but one without an official position would be a good idea.[/nq]
Those two Jewish gentlemen might agree:
Richelieu est dans l'Enfer,
Favori de Lucifer
Et dans ce lieu, comme en France,
On le traite d'Eminence.
Or summat like that.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]There was an article recently about Alberto Gonzales in Newsweek which is still readable here: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6872900/site/newsweek/, and I'm trying to ... translating "consigliere" into French as "éminence grise" a powerful adviser, but one without an official position would be a good idea.[/nq]
What do the following people have in common:
Alberto Gonzales, David Dreier, Harold Hodes, Gil Schwartz, Jim Smith, S. Andrew ******** and Frank "Frankie Loc" Locascio?
They've all been described as "consigliere" in this week's news.

Adrian

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Hello There was an article recently about Alberto Gonzales in Newsweek which is still readable here: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6872900/site/newsweek/, and I'm trying ... translating "consigliere" into French as "éminence grise" a powerful adviser, but one without an official position would be a good idea.[/nq]The consigliere, in Mafia lore, is the confidant of the Don and his principal adviser. He's also the first buffer between the Don and the rest of the Family. So, eg, in Puzo's Godfather Don Corleone tells Hagen, the Consigliere, what is to be done. Hagen passes the instructions to a caporegime or Captain who details a soldier. So culpability is put in watertight compartments. It's like the cell system of underground organisations - no-one knows the whole picture.

So the consigliere is an eminence grise but also a Chief of Staff. One interesting parallel (well, it interests *me*) between the Bushistas and the Corleones is that George is very fond of describing himself as a "war-time President". In the movie, Sonny Corleone (acting Don during his Father's period of sick leave from the corporation) gets annoyed at Hagen at one point and says "******* it! If I had a wartime consiglieri a Sicilian I wouldn't be in this shape." Apropos war one of the caporegimes says at one point, referring to the hostilities that have broken out between powerful families: "That's alright this thing's gotta happen every five years or so ten years helps to get rid of the bad blood.

Been ten years since the last one. You know you got to stop them at the beginning, like they should have stopped Hitler at Munich, They should never've let him get away with that. They were just asking for big trouble." I'm sure someone has done an exhaustive comparison of the Corleones and the Bushes. The rhetoric of stopping them at the beginning is familiar and "Been ten years since the last one." reminds us that there was little more than 10 years before the first and second Gulf Wars.

John Dean
Oxford
Mais un homme comme monsieur maussade, boudeur, impassible!

Consigliere = eminence grise?

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