Did you hear the latest from Brussels? The entire European Commission has just resigned because of a corruption scandal and who do they want to bring in to clear up the mess and restore credibility, but an Italian?
To those with an anti-Italian bias, the candidacy of the former Italian prime minister, Mr Romano Prodi, for President of the European Commission may seem like some sort of bad joke. But the fact that Prof Prodi already appears to have the support of senior European partners, such as Britain, says much not only about his impressive track record but also about his unsullied reputation for honesty and transparency in a country whose post-war political classes have hardly been distinguished by those two virtues.
In truth, Mr Prodi's candidacy continues to be surrounded by uncertainty, prompted both by his all-too-obvious unwillingness to abandon his newly-formed Italian political grouping, the Democrats, and by his reluctance to throw his hat into the ring until such time as all 15 EU member states have agreed not only on a candidate but also on an immediate strategy.
A front page cartoon in yesterday's Rome daily, La Repubblica, summed up much Italian political commentary on the Prodi candidacy. The cartoon depicted Mr Prodi as a donkey - the symbol he has chosen for his new party - being kicked and shoved by the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Massimo D'Alema, all the way to a European market place and a fate of immediate slaughter at the hands of German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder.
Since Mr Prodi's 2 1/2-year-old Olive Coalition government fell last October, he has emerged as a major rival to his successor, Mr D'Alema, as a candidate to lead the centre-left. Mr Prodi wishes to push Italy further down the road to a bi-polar democracy in which the role and influence of Mr D'Alema's party, Democratic Left - the former Communist party - would be greatly diminished.
To that end, Mr Prodi has formed his own group, the Democrats, with which to contest the European Elections in June.
In that context, many commentators speculate that Mr D'Alema's enthusiastic espousal of Mr Prodi's cause may be based not only on a legitimate pursuit of national interests but also on the possibility of ridding himself of a troublesome domestic ally.
Mr Prodi (59), an economist, was educated at Harvard, Stanford and the London School of Economics. Running an American-style campaign that made much use of a nationwide bus trail, Mr Prodi brought off a stunning general election win in April, 1996, at the head of a broad-based Olive Coalition in which Democrat Left was, by far, the dominant force.
In his 21/2 years in office, Mr Prodi worked a minor miracle on the Italian economy, defying all the expert predictions by reining in Italy's notoriously runaway economy to bring it in line with the single currency convergency criteria.
Possibly no post-war Italian government or prime minister has commanded the international respect and credibility afforded to Mr Prodi both by senior western partners and by the market place.
It is in that context that the widespread and seemingly growing European consensus behind his candidacy comes as no surprise.