By Barbie Nadeau

Even by Italian political standards, it was a bad week for Romano Prodi, Italy's now defunct prime minister. At various times over the past 20 months, it has seemed that the most Prodi's coalition had accomplished in power was, quite simply, not collapsing. Prodi's efforts to fight tax evasion and to reform various governmental entities were overshadowed by headlines about Neapolitan garbage and Spain bypassing Italian per capita GDP.  Was there really anywhere for the former economics professor to go but down?