Sure, Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi pretend they're fighting about a hot young model who calls Berlusconi her "papi." But that's just a banal cover story for what really gets the two men hot and bothered: media properties!

Berlusconi attended model Noemi Letizia's 18th birthday party; his outraged wife then stated publicly he didn't attend his own sons' 18th birthday parties. She filed for divorce.

The fracas over Berlusconi's real intentions with the woman has been covered frequently in Murdoch's Times of London, which recently ran an editorial about the Italian prime minister headlined "The clown's mask slips" and beginning, "The most distasteful aspect of Silvio Berlusconi's behaviour is not that he is a chauvinist buffoon." OK!

Murdoch insists his papers are just covering a legitimate scandal that's been the talk of the Italian press while Berlusconi insists the News Corp. overlord has ulterior motives. The Italian tycoon has called out Murdoch as biased on a Berlusconi-owned TV channel; Murdoch fired back on his Fox Business Network, saying it's not his fault his employees find Berlusconi sleazy.

The real fight: Berlusconi owns an Italian pay-TV system Murdoch once tried to take off his hands, while Murdoch's upstart Italian satellite TV operation has seen customer taxes double under Berlusconi's government, to 20 percent.

That's the thing with guys in their 70s: No matter what they say they're fighting about, it's usually really about a girl simultaneous control over popular opinion, mass communications mediums and technological innovation in the modern world.

[NY Times]