No word yet on whether Senator Kerry attended a speech to a joint session of Congress yesterday by the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, but we hope he did because Mr. Berlusconi delivered a majestic address. Mr. Berlusconi reminded the solons that his country and ours today share a love for liberty in large part because America set Italians free from the grip of the Fascists and then kept the country from falling under the thumb of the Soviet Union. “When I see your flag” Mr. Berlusconi said, “I do not merely see the flag of a great country: above all, I see a symbol, a universal symbol of democracy and freedom.”

Mr. Berlusconi told a story, “of a young man, one who had just graduated from high school. His father took him to a cemetery that was the final resting place for brave young soldiers – young people who had crossed an ocean to restore dignity and liberty to an oppressed people. In showing him those crosses, that father made him vow never to forget the ultimate sacrifice those young American soldiers had made for his freedom. That father made his son vow eternal gratitude to that country.” Mr. Berlusconi was the young man.

President Bush is derided by those who claim that his single-mindedness in pursuit of freedom costs America friends. In his acceptance speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, Mr. Kerry warned that “Strength is more than tough words…. We need to make America once again a beacon in the world. We need to be looked up to and not just feared.” Mr. Berlusconi’s remarks suggest, however, that America achieved that goal in the past by aggressively expanding the reach of freedom, just as Mr. Bush does today. “For my generation of Italians, the United States is a beacon of liberty, of civil and economic progress,” Mr. Berlusconi told Congress. As, so many Americans hope, our country will be for the next generation of Afghanis and Iraqis.