Here’s a scan of the page from the Italain paper Libero that contains my interview. I have a 1MB PDF of the page, but I didn’t know how to turn that into a decent size image.
For those, like me, who can’t read Italian, Francesco Poli (who scanned the image and also helped me with the interview by providing me information on Romano Prodi) has the translation. Now, some answers are quite a bit different than I remember, but, since I answered in English, the paper then edited that and translated it to Italiana, and Francesco translated it back to English, it’s hard to tell where the changes occured.
Anyhoo, here’s the interview translated back to English:
To say he is politically incorrect is an understatement. Frank J, the mind behind the American uber-conservative satire Imao.us, is incorrect from the title: “Unfair, unbalanced, unmedicated”, is written on top of the homepage. Even the site name says it all: IMAO (In My Arrogant Opinion) is the opposite of the standard acronym IMHO (In My Humble Opinion). Humble becomes arrogant, no need to add anything.
His modified pictures are appearing with some frequency on Italian papers, including ours.
Following, some arrogant and half-serious opinions on politics, terror, Prodi, mass media:
Libero: The Reuters scandal (the numerous Lebanon war pictures modified by the famous press agency to raise the emotive impact and to shine a bad light on the Israeli army – editor) showed that the bigger medias, especially during war, have enormous power and that the blogs can keep them in check. On which side are the media?
Frank: On the wrong one, of course. The big media have always acted in a partisan way, only until not long ago there was no way to oppose that. Today the media stand with the terrorists. They will change ideas as soon as terrorists become too powerful. And after they take everything back they will be decapitated.
Libero: That explains the criticism to Bush’s “Islamic fascism” remarks…
Frank: And that is why these people must be punched. I know that it’s normally best to use dialogue and reason, but with the liberals that’s impossible. Just by hearing the word “reason” they get scared and start running.
Libero: Speaking of liberals, in Connecticut the radical billionaire Ned Lamont beat the realist Liebermann (sic) at the Democrat primaries…
Frank: We should thank them: as soon as they realize that the Republicans have a problem, the Democrats rush to help them by doing something really stupid. The fact, then, that a white billionaire wants to represent the poor immigrants is something to die of laughter about. Republicans, at least, are rich whites that want to represent rich whites. At best, you can try to represent rich of all ethnicities, but I don’t think that would work.
Libero: What did you do as a child?
Frank: I spent all my childhood preparing for the Soviet invasion. They never came, and I must say that always let me down.
Libero: How did you get the idea of opening a blog?
Frank: Once my car’s ventilation system broke, and the inside of the car was invaded by a toxic cloud of carbon monoxide as I was driving. When I woke up, I realized that the world needed my blog. I’m a real intellectual, I am…
Libero: Imao, but also Potfry and Cox&Forkum. Conservative satire is in good shape, but the media insist that the only real funnymen are on the left. Making fun of neocon plots is a form of humor or what?
Frank: The leftwing satire is too sophisticated for us, that’s why we don’t laugh at it. If they say that Bush is like Hitler and you don’t laugh it’s your fault. We conservatives believe we are funny and laugh at our jokes, but even hyenas laugh, and notoriously, hyenas have no sense of humor. We think we’re funny, but we’re just fooling ourselves.
Libero: For the big media, in America there are only leftwing blogs and websites. Why doesn’t anyone talk about you?
Frank: Perhaps because we scare them.
Libero: Why does the UN want to give command of the Lebanon mission to France?
Frank: Because they initially wanted to give it to the Germans, then someone reminded them that it wasn’t necessary.
Libero: Let’s play fantasy politics. Cuba: with Fidel out of action what will the US do?
Frank: While Bush is busy punching Chavez, political and economic control of the island will be taken by the supermarket chain Wal-Mart, which meanwhile has put up a military presence, currently the fourth in the world (but they are only fourteenth in health benefits, that’s why unions hate them so much).
Libero: The world would be a safer place if…
Frank: Everyone carried a gun.
Libero: Three things Bush should have done but didn’t.
Frank: Grabbing all the world’s oil, bomb a random French city and strangle a dictator with his own hands.
Libero: Three things that Bush did and shouldn’t have.
Frank: Having a little doggie (rottweilers are better), try to put together “compassion” and “conservatism” and choking on a pretzel.
Libero: Final question: an opinion on Romano Prodi
Frank: I don’t know much of Italy. I know you have a very efficient mafia: it controls our mafia, which in turn controls half of our government, and that must be a hell of a tiring job. However, I did some research on Prodi: here’s what I found. They accuse him of being a communist puppet, but he actually looks more like a Muppet; unlike Floyd Landis he could win the Tour De France as he says he’d like to, because he has no blood testosterone.

Ha ha! Funnieness overcomes me.
WOW!
Hmmmm… …
I guess I’m left thinking that I don’t know if this looks good or bad…
Frank, I’d say you should have a few thoughts about the country from which you are being interviewed before the interview… and I don’t think the Italians really appreciate you bringing up the Italien Mafia too much.
Anyway … Congrats… sort-of… I hope they thought it was funny.
Roger,
I was just being honest. All I know about Italy is the mafia and that it’s shaped like a boot.
Well done, the mafia comment might have hit a nerve, but Italians generally have a good sense of humor about themselves. I tried to find the original (Italian) article but couldn’t, I would like to see how the interview came across in Italian.
You should have talked more about commies, there are a ton there and they, like our liberals, take themselves way too seriously
Bravo! IMAO is international now! Congratulations!
Datsa good boy, Frankie the J, watch that you don’t end up sleeping with the Pisces.
You had the perfect opportunity to use the phrase, “whatsa matta for you” and you didn’t do it! Whatsa matta for you?!
Hey Beo! Fugedboutit!
BTW, thanks for mentioning the rest of the IMAO crew.
Ducky,
I did! It was cut!
The scan won’t come up for me.
What’s wrong?!
I can’t quite figure out your angle here. Clearly this is an elaborate hoax, but who goes to the trouble of using Italy as the basis for an elaborate hoax?