Friday, April 20, 2007
The Wolfowitz Conundrum
I presume all of you have been following the drama surrounding Paul Wolfowitz. It was only a matter of time before the bungler-in-chief in Mesopotamia managed to pull off yet another disaster, even if not at the same scale. For those who came in late, Wolfowitz managed to get his girlfriend a new job at the State Dept for a highly inflated salary, completely out of line with World Bank policies. What's interesting is that his girlfriend's boss at State for a while was his former boss Dick Cheney's daughter, Liz Cheney. Of course, not being part of the reality-based community, none of these people would ever admit there might be a touch of nepotism to this whole affair.
What is going unreported for the most part is the deep irony embedded in this episode. Wolfowitz's organizing theme at the World Bank was combating corruption. Congo had its debt relief postponed, Kenya had loans frozen, India has health funds frozen, all in the name of preventing corruption. A tad bit hypocritical, don't you think?
What is going unreported for the most part is the deep irony embedded in this episode. Wolfowitz's organizing theme at the World Bank was combating corruption. Congo had its debt relief postponed, Kenya had loans frozen, India has health funds frozen, all in the name of preventing corruption. A tad bit hypocritical, don't you think?
