Quotes of the Day

Clemente Mastella unveiled the news with all the daring and chivalry of a medieval knight. The Justice Minister's honor — and particularly that of his wife, a local politician — had been sullied, he fumed, when a magistrate near their hometown east of Naples leveled influence-peddling charges at both of them. And thus this key centrist ally of Prime Minister Romano Prodi announced that he, "with great courage," was withdrawing his party's support for the fragile majority, opening the door to a government crisis. "Che coraggio!?" an Italian might say with an apt double meaning: "What courage?" and "What gall!" Just 24 hours later, Mastella was already being publicly courted by Silvio Berlusconi, ever-present opposition chief, Prodi archnemesis and former — and would-be future — Prime Minister.

Despite its air of overwrought soap opera, Italy's latest government crisis is almost anticlimactic. Prodi took office in 2006 with a razor-thin majority in the Senate, backed by disparate allies who didn't trust each other; most of them possessed enough votes to trigger a collapse. But the fate of the coalition and the career of the former European Commission President is largely beside the point. Fifteen years after the dismantling of a corrupt ruling class was supposed to have paved the way for reform of public life, Italy's entire political system is broken. Rather than sleaze, it is now mired in sludge, unable to break a vicious circle of stall and cynicism.

It is fitting that the man who sparked the current predicament, Mastella, hails from the region of Campania, home to a wretched public-works emergency — trash has gone uncollected for weeks. And that is not the only reminder that distracted political leadership has direct consequences on people's lives. Another is the fate of a bill crafted by the Ministry of Social Affairs setting badly needed national standards for long-term elderly and disabled care. Raffaele Tangorra, a top technical official in the Ministry, would have expected no opposition to this nonpartisan proposal were it pushed through Parliament, as planned, this spring. But while the politicians sort out their latest mess, the bill languishes — and risks winding up on a long list of wasted efforts and unrealized policies.

Political insiders have complex diagrams and Machiavellian analyses to explain why the Italian ruling class is so ineffective. Anthropologists lecture about the national tendency toward fatalism; sociologists talk of a fractured polity riven by regional differences. Others point out the anomaly that the Roman Catholic Church's headquarters loom large in the nation's political capital.

All these arguments may have their merits. But identifying the causes does little to remedy the problem. A better starting point might be to look for the rare attribute that Mastella claimed to possess: courage. There is a notable dearth of it among Italian politicians, and that is both cause and symptom of the malady afflicting public life. Political courage is, of course, something that can neither be spontaneously declared nor imposed by law. The most cynical Italians will say it is a concept that doesn't even exist. Still, there is no way out of the current gridlock without it.

Prodi himself gave what might seem a bold speech to Parliament, seeking a vote of confidence after Mastella's exit. Chiding those fellow legislators who might have been planning an "opaque," backroom resolution to the crisis, he stated: "It is right that all comes to light in this place, in the halls of Parliament, the fundamental seat of democracy." But after his own closed-door coddling of allies in the government's 10-party coalition, he couldn't play even that card with much conviction. Twenty months of constant internal bickering, and a half-dozen near or real crises, have made Prodi's reign resemble the political version of Survivor. Even Berlusconi, who burst onto the political scene in 1994 with billionaire bravado, has become a shadow of his former self, talking obscure Roman political jargon and cutting deals with anyone who will help him win back power. That effort is undercut by the fact that Italians have now learned that mere survival, which Berlusconi achieved for a post-war record of five years until 2006, is not the same thing as stability.

The man long tapped to take over the center-left from Prodi is Rome mayor Walter Veltroni. He talks the lofty rhetoric associated with American-style democracy — of change and courage — and cites Robert Kennedy and Barack Obama. But it is telling that Veltroni did not challenge the older Prodi for the right to lead the charge against Berlusconi in 2006, though he was far more popular. Instead, he waited his turn. Now that his moment is arriving, Veltroni should resist the temptation to cut deals with the leaders of small parties — the Mastellas of the left, right and center. If he goes it alone, it might be his downfall. Or it might not. But either way, it is time that he — or someone — showed a little of the courage Italy needs.

• JEFF ISRAELY
• Italy's politicians love drama, but their self-serving performances don't advance the plot