Wolf Out The Door

"Everyone ran into the hallways and were clapping and hugging each other."
An anonymous employee of the World Bank upon hearing that Paul Wolfowitz, champion of the world's poorest inhabitants and leading architect of the Bush administration's widely acclaimed Iraq invasion, had finally resigned from the World Bank in a conflict of interest scandal involving a pay raise and promotion to his girlfriend.

It turns out there was a lot more to the story than just doing favors for his paramour--charges which proved devastating and ultimately fatal for the Wolf-man's career as head of the World Bank, a position traditionally appointed by the American president, while the Euros get to choose who runs the International Monetary Fund. Ironically, another Wolf-man held the job before the present Wolf-man: James Wolfensohn, although the latter Wolf was appointed by Bill Clinton. That's the kind of trivia you're only gonna find here on WardensWorld.

Anyway, before too very long it looks like Bush will get to pick a successor to Paul Wolfowitz. Great. How does John Bolton sound, because you just know it's gonna be him or some other scumbag that Rove and Cheney will come up with just to fuck with everyone before they leave office, which can't be soon enough--even for all those hapless Republicans running for office in 2008.

According to a piece in the German newspaper Der Spiegel which I just finished translating, there were also charges that he was an arrogant boss, put unqualified friends and underqualified cronies into high positions, and fostered and promoted an agenda practically at odds with the vast majority of World Bank directors, officers and employees. You see, neocons always know what's best for the world, the rest of us just haven't caught up to their wisdom yet.

I know that charges of cronyism, incompetence and corruption leveled at someone with ties so close to our upstanding president George W. Bush surprise us all these days, what with the examples of moral rectitude set by Messrs. Libby, Gonzalez, Rove, Abramoff, et al. And after the honorable, noble behavior we've seen exhibited by high-ranking Bush administration officials like Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, does the claim of overbearing arrogance and highhandedness likewise not ring false, just another sordid case of a liberal media out for blood and ganging up on these unfairly harangued statesmen who want only to do the people's business. We report, you decide...