The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Gustavo Selva. He gets the award for the following.

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian senator who faked illness to get an ambulance to rush him through heavy traffic to a TV appointment resigned on Monday after a roasting in the media.

Gustavo Selva, an 80-year-old conservative politician, boasted on live television on Saturday that he had been unable to travel by car as Rome's roads were blocked due to a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush.

"I used an old journalist's trick to get here," he said.

In a resignation letter to the head of the Senate, the senator, a member of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, praised the ambulance team for the "speed and efficiency of the service".

Health Minister Livia Turco was not amused. "This arrogant stunt could have had tragic consequences if another person had really needed that ambulance," she said.

The Senate, Italy's upper house of parliament, will now have to vote on whether to accept Selva's resignation or allow him to return to the chamber.

One has to wonder if the eighty-year-old Selva is going senile. No matter, Gustavo Selva is today's Knucklehead of the Day.

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