Is this the end of Paul Wolfowitz's "Anti-Corruption Drive?"

[shereads]

So one of the key planners of the Iraq war is out at World Bank because he sort of accidentally ordered his girlfriend promoted and paid a salary in excess of what the position was supposed to pay, and then lied about it.

Topics:

1) Wow. The Iraq war was planned?

2) Aw, Jesus. Someone had sex with Paul Wolfowitz?! A diet could be based on how queasy that makes me feel.

3) Paul Wolfowitz...He's the one who was going to use his position at World Bank to end corruption, right? How did that work out?

Discuss.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

What is really sad is that the World Bank IS a thoroughly corrupt institution whose victims are the desperate poor of the Third World, and Wolfowitz really WAS taking steps to clean out this Augean stable. In their hatred of anything related to Bush the liberal elites in this country and Europe have placed politics above the downtrodden masses they affect to care about. The next several posts shed some light that has probably not penetrated the fever swamps of the left wing blogosphere.



WSJ
The Wolfowitz Files
The anatomy of a World Bank smear.

Monday, April 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

The World Bank released its files in the case of President Paul Wolfowitz's ethics on Friday, and what a revealing download it is. On the evidence in these 109 pages, it is clearer than ever that this flap is a political hit based on highly selective leaks to a willfully gullible press corps.

Mr. Wolfowitz asked the World Bank board to release the documents, after it became possible the 24 executive directors would adjourn early Friday morning without taking any action in the case. This would have allowed Mr. Wolfowitz's anonymous bank enemies to further spin their narrative that he had taken it upon himself to work out a sweetheart deal for his girlfriend and hide it from everyone.

The documents tell a very different story--one that makes us wonder if some bank officials weren't trying to ambush Mr. Wolfowitz from the start. Bear with us as we report the details, because this is a case study in the lack of accountability at these international satrapies.





The paper trail shows that Mr. Wolfowitz had asked to recuse himself from matters related to his girlfriend, a longtime World Bank employee, before he signed his own employment contract. The bank's general counsel at the time, Roberto Danino, wrote in a May 27, 2005 letter to Mr. Wolfowitz's lawyers:
"First, I would like to acknowledge that Mr. Wolfowitz has disclosed to the Board, through you, that he has a pre-existing relationship with a Bank staff member, and that he proposes to resolve the conflict of interest in relation to Staff Rule 3.01, Paragraph 4.02 by recusing himself from all personnel matters and professional contact related to the staff member." (Our emphasis here and elsewhere.)

That would have settled the matter at any rational institution, given that his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, worked four reporting layers below the president in the bank hierarchy. But the bank board--composed of representatives from donor nations--decided to set up an ethics committee to investigate. And it was the ethics committee that concluded that Ms. Riza's job entailed a "de facto conflict of interest" that could only be resolved by her leaving the bank.

Ms. Riza was on a promotion list at the time, and so the bank's ethicists also proposed that she be compensated for this blow to her career. In a July 22, 2005, ethics committee discussion memo, Mr. Danino noted that "there would be two avenues here for promotion--an 'in situ' promotion to Grade GH for the staff member" and promotion through competitive selection to another position." Or, as an alternative, "The Bank can also decide, as part of settlement of claims, to offer an ad hoc salary increase."

Five days later, on July 27, ethics committee chairman Ad Melkert formally advised Mr. Wolfowitz in a memo that "the potential disruption of the staff member's career prospect will be recognized by an in situ promotion on the basis of her qualifying record . . ." In the same memo, Mr. Melkert recommends "that the President, with the General Counsel, communicates this advice" to the vice president for human resources "so as to implement" it immediately.

And in an August 8 letter, Mr. Melkert advised that the president get this done pronto: "The EC [ethics committee] cannot interact directly with staff member situations, hence Xavier [Coll, the human resources vice president] should act upon your instruction." Only then did Mr. Wolfowitz instruct Mr. Coll on the details of Ms. Riza's new job and pay raise.

Needless to say, none of this context has appeared in the media smears suggesting that Mr. Wolfowitz pulled a fast one to pad the pay of Ms. Riza. Yet the record clearly shows he acted only after he had tried to recuse himself but then wasn't allowed to do so by the ethics committee. And he acted only after that same committee advised him to compensate Ms. Riza for the damage to her career from a "conflict of interest" that was no fault of her own.

Based on this paper trail, Mr. Wolfowitz's only real mistake was in assuming that everyone else was acting in good faith. Yet when some of these details leaked to the media, nearly everyone else at the bank dodged responsibility and let Mr. Wolfowitz twist in the wind. Mr. Melkert, a Dutch politician now at the U.N., seems to have played an especially cowardly role.

In an October 24, 2005 letter to Mr. Wolfowitz, he averred that "because the outcome is consistent with the Committee's findings and advice above, the Committee concurs with your view that this matter can be treated as closed." A month later, on November 25, Mr. Melkert even sent Mr. Wolfowitz a personal, hand-written note saying, "I would like to thank you for the very open and constructive spirit of our discussions, knowing in particular the sensitivity to Shaha, who I hope will be happy in her new assignment."

And when anonymous World Bank staffers began to circulate emails making nasty allegations about Ms. Shaha's job transfer and pay in early 2006, Mr. Melkert dismissed them in a letter to Mr. Wolfowitz on February 28, 2006, because they "did not contain new information warranting any further review by the Committee." Yet amid the recent media smears, Mr. Melkert has minimized his own crucial role.





All of this is so unfair that Mr. Wolfowitz could be forgiven for concluding that bank officials insisted he play a role in raising Ms. Riza's pay precisely so they could use it against him later. Even if that isn't true, it's clear that his enemies--especially Europeans who want the bank presidency to go to one of their own--are now using this to force him out of the bank. They especially dislike his anticorruption campaign, as do his opponents in the staff union and such elites of the global poverty industry as Nancy Birdsall of the Center for Global Development. They prefer the status quo that holds them accountable only for how much money they lend, not how much they actually help the poor.
Equally cynical has been the press corps, which slurred Mr. Wolfowitz with selective reporting and now says, in straight-faced solemnity, that the president must leave the bank because his "credibility" has been damaged. Paul Wolfowitz, meet the Duke lacrosse team.

The only way this fiasco could get any worse would be for Mr. Wolfowitz to resign in the teeth of so much dishonesty and cravenness. We're glad the Bush Administration isn't falling for this Euro-bureaucracy-media putsch. Mr. Wolfowitz has apologized for any mistakes he's made, though we're not sure why. He's the one who deserves an apology.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

WSJ

Africans for Wolfowitz
April 27, 2007; Page A16
One of the most revealing subplots in the European coup attempt against World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is who is coming to the American's defense. The rich European donor countries want him to resign, while the Africans who are the bank's major clients are encouraging him to stay.

You wouldn't know this from the press coverage, which continues to report selective leaks from the bank staff and European sources who started this political putsch. The latest "news" is that the European Parliament has asked Mr. Wolfowitz to resign, thus sustaining that body's reputation for irrelevant but politically correct gestures. If Mr. Wolfowitz leaves, no doubt some of the europols will angle for the job.

The more telling story is the support for the bank president from reform-minded Africans. At a press conference during this month's World Bank-IMF meetings in Washington, four of the more progressive African finance ministers were asked about the Wolfowitz flap. Here's how Antoinette Sayeh, Liberia's finance minister, responded:

"I would say that Wolfowitz's performance over the last several years and his leadership on African issues should certainly feature prominently in the discussions. . . . In the Liberian case and the case of many forgotten post-conflict fragile countries, he has been a visionary. He has been absolutely supportive, responsive, there for us. . . . We think that he has done a lot to bring Africa in general . . . into the limelight and has certainly championed our cause over the last two years of his leadership, and we look forward to it continuing."

The deputy prime minister for Mauritius, Rama Krishna Sithanen, then piped in that "he has been supportive of reforms in our country. . . . We think that he has done a good job. More specifically, he has apologized for what has happened."

Sub-Saharan Africa is the world's poorest region, and Mr. Wolfowitz has appropriately made it his top priority. On his first day on the job, he met with a large group of African ambassadors and advocates. His first trip as bank president was a swing through Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa. He also recruited two African-born women vice presidents, a rarity at the bank.

If you're surprised by that last fact, then you don't appreciate that the World Bank has always been a sinecure for developed-world politicians. They get handsome salaries, tax free, and their performance is measured not by how much poverty they cure but by how much money they disperse.

Mr. Wolfowitz has upset this sweetheart status quo by focusing more on results, and especially on the corruption that undermines development and squanders foreign aid. Yet many of the poor countries themselves welcome such intervention. At the same April 14 press conference, Zambian Finance Minister N'Gandu Peter Magande endorsed the anticorruption agenda:

"We should keep positive that whatever happens to the president, if, for example, he was to leave, I think whoever comes, we insist that he continues where we have been left, in particular on this issue of anticorruption. That is a cancer that has seen quite a lot of our countries lose development and has seen the poverty continuing in our countries. And therefore . . . we want to live up to what [Wolfowitz] made us believe" that "it is important for ourselves to keep to those high standards."

The real World Bank scandal is that Mr. Wolfowitz's enemies don't care much about Africa. The French and Brits who want him ousted have never entirely shaken the paternalism they developed during the colonial era. Their real priority is controlling the bank purse-strings and perquisites.

As for the coup attempt, Mr. Wolfowitz's fate now rests with the 24-member bank board. Europeans dominate, while we saw only two Africans listed on the bank's Web site. These profiles in buck-passing have asked Mr. Wolfowitz to meet with them on Monday; his lawyer can join him but won't be allowed to speak.

The noisy leaking and staff protests are aimed at getting Mr. Wolfowitz to make their life easy by resigning. But that would only validate their campaign to oust him for giving his girlfriend a raise that the bank's own ethics committee advised him to deliver after he had tried to recuse himself. Since our editorial reported on all of these "ethics" details two weeks ago, no one has even tried to dispute our facts. The critics have shifted to a new line that, because his "credibility" has been damaged by these selective smears, Mr. Wolfowitz must now resign "for the good of the bank."

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Corruption Fighter
By BAMBANG HARYMURTI
May 14, 2007; Page A17

JAKARTA -- Fighting corruption is a hazardous mission. In poor and developing countries you can be assassinated, which happened to journalists Georgy Gongadze in Ukraine and Carlos Alberto Cardozo in Mozambique in 2000. Even in France there is danger, as magistrate Eva Joly discovered.

Ms. Joly prosecuted the state-owned Credit Lyonnais, which had incurred billions of dollars of losses through mismanagement; her seven-year investigation of the Elf Aquitaine oil company exposed corruption at the highest levels of business and political life. As a result she was subjected to intimidation and death threats and had to be constantly under police protection; her adversaries even produced a film portraying her as an unstable zealot. In 2002 the Norwegian government asked her to return to her native land, and promptly appointed her a special adviser in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Justice.

But Ms. Joly, whom I have been privileged to know, remains steadfast in her efforts against official corruption, and assists, where she can, other anti-corruption activists all over the world. She gathered international support for me when I was sentenced to one year of incarceration by an Indonesian court in 2004.

My crime was that of being the editor in chief of a newsweekly magazine that published a story about the possibility of arson in one of Indonesia's largest traditional markets. Instead of using our story as preliminary information to start an investigation, the police decided to investigate us -- and we ended up as defendants in a criminal defamation case. And it was during this difficult time that another friend, Paul Wolfowitz, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about my case. He was then second in command at the Pentagon and a very busy man. Yet he came forward to help.

Now it is Mr. Wolfowitz who is having a very difficult time. As president of the World Bank, he is accused of secretly helping his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, get a hefty pay raise; some former high officials of the bank have demanded his resignation. I was shocked when I read the news. I have known Mr. Wolfowitz for more than two decades and I have never doubted his personal integrity. I have also known Ms. Riza for more than a decade. We share a passion: advocating for a more liberal and democratic interpretation of Islam than what is now prevalent in the Middle East. Since I have been covering news for more than a quarter century, my reporter instinct automatically went to work.

The material available to the public shows that Mr. Wolfowitz declared his special relationship with Ms. Riza to the bank's ethics committee when he first took his position and asked to be recused from matters relating to Ms. Riza, a longtime bank employee. The ethics committee denied this request and recommended that Mr. Wolfowitz have her leave the bank promptly and be compensated fairly. Mr. Wolfowitz followed this advice and, subsequently, the chairman of the ethics committee sent him two letters, thanking him for his action and acknowledging that the matter was considered closed.

Judging from all the documents that are available to the public, it seems to me it is the conduct of the ethics board, and not that of Mr. Wolfowitz, that should be investigated by an independent team. Perhaps headed by Eva Joly. This should be done promptly in order to save the World Bank from losing its effectiveness in its main goal of eradicating global poverty.

In fact, this crisis can turn out to be a great opportunity to show the world how to handle problems of conflict of interest in high places. This is a common problem among World Bank clients, the developing countries.

Poor countries usually lack skilled managers, and many of their competent managers are clustered in a few big families and, among those families' members, intermarriages are quite common. Hence conflicts of interests are much more prevalent, and a solution for handling this problem is greatly needed. The World Bank, which prides itself as being a knowledge bank, is well positioned to provide the answer. The question now is: Can the bank accept this challenge?

I am quite confident that Mr. Wolfowitz can, based on how he handled "odious debt" at the World Bank -- the situation in which loans are made with the knowledge that a big chunk of the money will probably be stolen. He did not give in to the pressure from the left to write off odious debt, and he did not give in to the pressure from the right in the opposite direction. His answer was to increase the corruption-prevention and asset-recovery capabilities of poor countries.

He has found many champions in this endeavor. Nuhu Ribadu, the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission of Nigeria, is one. Under his leadership, and with $5 million of assistance from the World Bank, his commission has been able to recover $5 billion worth of stolen assets, and to prevent further aid money from being corrupted. It is not by coincidence that Mr. Ribadu has publicly stated his support for Mr. Wolfowitz to remain the president of the World Bank.

Many critics of Mr. Wolfowitz's anti-corruption policy argue that suspending a loan is bad policy, even if there is indication of corruption, because poor people will suffer the most. But consider one of the most successful World Bank projects in my country: the Kecamatan Development Project (KDP), which has given more than $1.3 billion to millions of poor people in 35,000 subdistricts. The poor people decide by themselves, in a very democratic way, which project the money should be spent on. Not a single penny goes through government coffers and, therefore, nothing can be stolen by public officials. The project is done in a transparent way and is supervised by the whole community, and funding will be stopped by the bank if any misuse is detected. This threat of suspension as a collective punishment works very well.

For many poor people in Indonesia, this is the first time that any outsider has helped them in building public infrastructure in their area. It is such a successful program that many countries are now mimicking it. China, for instance, is planning to implement a similar project.

In Indonesia, it is widely believed that around 30% of foreign loans disbursed in the past were stolen. The World Bank has given $25 billion in loans to my country since 1968, which means almost $8 billion of these loans ended up in the wrong places. Imagine how much more effective the World Bank would be if its entire loan program was free from corruption.

Fortunately, some of the stolen money may still be recovered if countries like Indonesia can learn from the Nuhu Ribadu experience and are assisted by the bank. This is an exciting challenge and all the more reason to support the Wolfowitz presidency. I am writing this not just to support a friend in need, but to help save a great institution. Mr. Wolfowitz is on the right track and has the passion needed to succeed in the difficult task of changing the mistaken and deeply embedded paradigm at the World Bank.

Mr. Harymurti is the editor of the weekly newsmagazine and daily newspaper published by Tempo Interactive.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

The Whistleblowers' Tale
Brett Stephens
May 8, 2007; Page A18
In the summer of 1997, two senior World Bank officials published an academic article under the cheerful title, "Africa on the Move: Attracting Private Capital to a Changing Continent." The authors, Jean-Louis Sarbib of France and Callisto Madavo of Zimbabwe, were responsible for the bank's work in Africa, and they took an optimistic view. "A new spirit of social and economic progress has energized much of the region," they wrote, "and gradually the rest of the world is beginning to take notice."

Among the bank's own contributions to this African Renaissance, as it was then being billed, was something called the Niger Health Sector Development Program. It had been approved by Mr. Sarbib the year before with the stated objectives of improving the quality and coverage of basic health services, expanding the population's access to generic drugs and reforming the health sector. The plan anticipated expenditures of $275 million over five years, starting with an initial grant of $40 million -- big sums for a small, highly indebted and politically unstable country.

Months before the project was formally approved by the bank's board, however, doubts about its size, nature and prospective efficacy were being raised by a midlevel bank officer named Bahram Mahmoudi. An Iranian-born economist with extensive field experience in Africa, Mr. Mahmoudi had been in Niger in April 1996 on a separate project. But he had seen enough of the health program to share his misgivings about it with its manager.

Why, for instance, were most of the program funds being allocated to construction projects when the World Bank's own "assistance strategy" to Niger emphasized rural and preventive care? Why were 13 staff members -- more than double the usual size -- assigned to the program? Why -- despite two years and nearly $1 million worth of "concept development" -- had there been no adequate financial and economic analysis of the program's feasibility? Did Niger have the institutional capacity to handle such large investments? And was it appropriate for team members to be using their time in Niger to take their spouses on sightseeing tours?

None of these observations went down well with the management. Mr. Mahmoudi made himself even more of a nuisance at the bank in 1998, when he raised a flag with Messrs. Madavo and Sarbib over the dismissal, ostensibly on budgetary grounds, of a dozen employees, mostly from developing countries, and their subsequent replacement with a dozen mostly European ones. In July 1999, an independent investigation by the law firm Dewey Ballantine concluded this was not, as Mr. Mahmoudi believed, a case of racial discrimination, although it did cite "significant management problems."

Yet by the time that conclusion was reached Mr. Mahmoudi had left the bank, having ended a 20-year career with a sharp downward turn in his performance reviews and a pink slip. A review given a year prior to his criticism of the Niger program praised Mr. Mahmoudi's work in Africa for its "dynamism and perspicacity." By contrast, a review from 1997 notes that his work in Niger, "which initially received favorable comments from peer reviewers . . . was not endorsed by the management team which felt he had moved too quickly without carrying out sufficient dialogue."

Convinced he had been sacked for his whistleblowing, Mr. Mahmoudi appealed his termination to the bank's administrative tribunal. In May 2000 the tribunal agreed he had been wrongfully dismissed -- albeit on procedural grounds -- and ordered his reinstatement. In an extraordinary step, the bank cited presidential discretion to refuse reinstatement and instead offer compensation of 18 months salary.

Given usual bank practices, Mr. Mahmoudi was lucky to have gotten even that much. "Keep in mind that nobody is truly independent at the Word Bank," says former bank official Anthony Van Vugt. "Not the ethics officers, not the judges, not the staff association. The managers are very severe about anyone who speaks out."

The Dutch-born Mr. Van Vugt has his own bitter experience as a whistleblower. In 1995, he discovered that $100,000 had been misappropriated by his managers from a trust fund intended to finance water-sector reform in the Philippines. At his retirement that year, he submitted an audit certificate for the project making note of the misused money. Several months later he requested a copy of the certificate. "What I found," he recalls, "was a substitute statement that was signed in my name. The qualification [regarding the $100,000] that I had included in the original statement had disappeared."

Mr. Van Vugt then filed an ethics investigation. "I made the point to quite a few people that $100,000 had been used improperly, and that made people uncomfortable. Eventually, I find a piece of paper that says that Tony Van Vugt mismanaged his project and for that reason he shall be denied any future employment with the bank." The ethics investigation went nowhere.

For Mr. Van Vugt, that note foreclosed the often lucrative consulting opportunities many retired bank officials enjoy. For midcareer officials, the bank's hex can be absolutely devastating. It can make its enemies unemployable. A foreign national who loses his job can have his U.S. visa revoked. The result is a culture of conformity, silence and fear. "As soon as you're seen blowing the whistle," says Mr. Van Vugt, "your own colleagues won't even sit next to you in the cafeteria."

As for Mr. Mahmoudi, a vindication of sorts came several years later when the bank quietly released a report assessing the Niger health program. The program, on which $50 million was ultimately spent, was rated as "unsatisfactory" for bank performance, borrower performance, sustainability and "quality at entry." A comparative analysis of project performance across six regions shows that during the tenure of Messrs. Sarbib and Madavo, Africa had the highest number of projects yet the lowest likely sustainability percentage, the lowest satisfactory percentage for bank performance and the lowest satisfactory borrower performance at implementation.

Mr. Sarbib was subsequently promoted to senior vice president before retiring last year. Mr. Madavo is a visiting professor at Georgetown. Both men recently signed a public letter calling on Paul Wolfowitz to resign for damaging the bank's reputation.

 

[Stella_Omega]

What is really sad is that the World Bank IS a thoroughly corrupt institution whose victims are the desperate poor of the Third World, and Wolfowitz really WAS taking steps to clean out this Augean stable. In their hatred of anything related to Bush the liberal elites in this country and Europe have placed politics above the downtrodden masses they affect to care about. The next several posts shed some light that has probably not penetrated the fever swamps of the left wing blogosphere.

Gosh, it's such a shame that those stupid liberals hate the man that cheated his way into a presidency and lied in order to concoct a war and killed so many of our enlisted men! You'd think they'd be kinder and more understanding! After all, it's only politics.

 

[cloudy]

Gosh, it's such a shame that those stupid liberals hate the man that cheated his way into a presidency and lied in order to concoct a war and killed so many of our enlisted men! You'd think they'd be kinder and more understanding! After all, it's only politics.

I know! After all, securing that job for his girlfriend at a higher level of pay than anyone else would receive was charity!

 

[rgraham666]

It's only corruption if the other guys do it.

If your side does it it's, uhm, uh, recognizing deserved talent.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

 

[Huckleman2000]

The WSJ Editorial pages, as sources of news, are fit to line the bottom of a birdcage.

Having said that, the World Bank has been the instrument of choice to strip the Third World of valuable resources, while providing poor economic advice and onerous strictures that keep the general populations living in indebted nations in poverty.

Truly, Wolfowitz was born to lead such an institution.

It really is a measure of how weakened the US position has become in international affairs, that even the World Bank is so disgusted with us that they can boot the position that's been a de facto US appointment since the organization's inception.

The shock isn't that there's cutthroat politics at the World Bank - the shock is that the US doesn't have enough clout to muscle its way through it. If BushCo had any international credibility at all, this wouldn't have ever been an issue.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The WSJ Editorial pages, as sources of news, are fit to line the bottom of a birdcage.

Having said that, the World Bank has been the instrument of choice to strip the Third World of valuable resources, while providing poor economic advice and onerous strictures that keep the general populations living in indebted nations in poverty.

Truly, Wolfowitz was born to lead such an institution.

It really is a measure of how weakened the US position has become in international affairs, that even the World Bank is so disgusted with us that they can boot the position that's been a de facto US appointment since the organization's inception.

The shock isn't that there's cutthroat politics at the World Bank - the shock is that the US doesn't have enough clout to muscle its way through it. If BushCo had any international credibility at all, this wouldn't have ever been an issue.

You mean-- us Libs can decry the World Bank and Bush? I got the impression for a minute it was an either/or proposition...

 

[jomar]

So one of the key planners of the Iraq war is out at World Bank because he sort of accidentally ordered his girlfriend promoted and paid a salary in excess of what the position was supposed to pay, and then lied about it.

Topics:

1) Wow. The Iraq war was planned?

2) Aw, Jesus. Someone had sex with Paul Wolfowitz?! A diet could be based on how queasy that makes me feel.

3) Paul Wolfowitz...He's the one who was going to use his position at World Bank to end corruption, right? How did that work out?

Discuss.

You tickle my funny bone in the best way. Are you spoken for?

 

[rgraham666]

For once, Roxanne is right. It is liberals, or a liberal that severely fucked up The World Bank.

To whit, as I understand it, Robert McNamara.

Whether it was Ford, the U.S. Armed Forces, the Vietnam War or The World Bank, there wasn't anything that he was involved in that didn't get completely fubared.

 

[Huckleman2000]

You mean-- us Libs can decry the World Bank and Bush? I got the impression for a minute it was an either/or proposition...

Quick! Alert the WSJ editors! BushCo does not equal the US!

 

[Pure]

i find the WSJ's crocodile tears less than convincing. i don't think the editorial staff worry much about the poorest countries. nor do i think they esteem the politician of those countries. why now. because some like Wolfie.

the issue of 'good works' vs. honesty is an old one; i'm sure the WSJ crowd has made exactly the oppositie argument. if a hated liberal helped a slum neighborhood, BUT also syphoned a few funds, they'd be saying "a crook is a crook"; he must go. Ted Kennedy will never be mentioned without Chappaquidick.

from the far right, we know that the slightest moral failing is considered fatal, in a liberal, regardless of 50 years of 'works.' (note the planned flap over Obama's unpaid parking tickets. note the fuss over guiliani's three marriages.)

so Roxy's posted items are prime examples of hypocrisy (the authors', not hers).

===
i agree with rg that liberals cannot escape blame for 'underdevelopment.' they often represent a slightly different set of corporate interests, and building a cheap well in a village is not really their objective.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Ha ha ha, fun and games, laugh all the way to the Third World killing fields that the corupt, self-serving World Bank culture of privilege, cronyism, lies and hypocracy has in part enabled and financed. Wolfowitz posed a genuine threat to this reeking cesspool and its priviliged, inbred elite. Fortunately for them, the cultural, media and political establishments of this country and Europe, themselves inbred and privileged, were so blinded by their hatred of the current administration that they were happy to be made their "bitches."

They must be laughing in their champagne and caviar at World Bank HQ. As for what they must think of grass-roots leftists who are also drinking toasts this week, that's easy: Sucker! Dupe!

 

[Pure]

laugh all the way to the Third World killing fields

those fields; always a prime item of concern in the WSJ crowd! what hypocrisy!

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

For the first time in almost two years the only suitable response to a post here is to urge an anatomically improbable act, but through clenched teeth I will honor the ethos of civility that most people here observe and not say it.

 

[elsol]

For the first time in almost two years the only suitable response to a post here is to urge an anatomically improbable act, but through clenched teeth I will honor the ethos of civility that most people here observe and not say it.

Just because you didn't write "Go Fuck Yourself!" doesn't mean you didn't just say "Go Fuck Yourself!"

So much for civility.

 

[cloudy]

Just because you didn't write "Go Fuck Yourself!" doesn't mean you didn't just say "Go Fuck Yourself!"

So much for civility.

Indeed. As I've said before, whether you use four-syllable words or the more common vernacular, it means exactly the same thing.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Just because you didn't write "Go Fuck Yourself!" doesn't mean you didn't just say "Go Fuck Yourself!"

So much for civility.

El Sol, I was just flat out called a hypocrite to my face.

What am I supposed to do? Honestly - what can one possibly say to that?

The post did not in any way engage the substance of what I said, it just made a purely ad hominem attack. Should I just shut up and take it? I am trying to be civil, and did bite off the response that many here would not hold back from. But - how can one respond to that? Really?

Is your advice to descend to, "Are not!" "Are too!" "Are not!" "Are too!" ?

 

[elsol]

El Sol, I was just flat out called a hypocrite to my face.

What am I supposed to do? Honestly - what can one possibly say to that?

The post did not in any way engage the substance of what I said, it just made a purely ad hominem attack. Should I just shut up and take it? I am trying to be civil, and did bite off the response that many here would not hold back from. But - how can one respond to that? Really?

Is your advice to descend to, "Are not!" "Are too!" "Are not!" "Are too!" ?

It strikes me that you defended against an accussation of hypocrisy by being a hypocrite.

Given the choice between descending and that... I'd go with going on the offenssive.

"Go fuck yourself, Pure!" would have gotten kudos from me.

Edited to add: In fact, I'll make an offer... if anyone ever needs to tell someone to go fuck themselves but you feel that you're too civil or nice... come to me, I'll do it for you. Just call me the Local "Go Fuck Yourself" Author's Hangout Representative.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

It strikes me that you defended against an accussation of hypocrisy by being a hypocrite.

Given the choice between descending and that... I'd go with going on the offenssive.

"Go fuck yourself, Pure!" would have gotten kudos from me.

Edited to add: In fact, I'll make an offer... if anyone ever needs to tell someone to go fuck themselves but you feel that you're too civil or nice... come to me, I'll do it for you. Just call me the Local "Go Fuck Yourself" Author's Hangout Representative.

I'm grateful for the offer.

I dunno about the rest, though. Maybe it's just a matter of taste or aesthetics, but notwithstanding yours and Cloudy's view, I feel that not saying the actual words and instead saying something slightly droll really is more civil. A neutral third party can perhaps smirk while thinking, "I know what X really wanted to say," and move on without experiencing the stress of being exposed to nakedly unsheathed hostility. Consideration for those not engaged in a dispute is part of civility, too.

 

[shereads]

They must be laughing in their champagne and caviar at World Bank HQ. As for what they must think of grass-roots leftists who are also drinking toasts this week, that's easy: Sucker! Dupe!

ROXANNE: Your concern for the fate of the Third World and your contempt for "the privileged" are almost as moving as your passionate defense of our right, as free Americans, to own single-driver SUVs for the grueling drive to Super Walmart.

FELLOW DUPES & LEFTISTS: Who has cesspool duty this week? Somebody spilled caviar in the shallow end.



P.S. Rox, are you by any chance Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend? I had no idea. I swear.

 

[elsol]

ROXANNE: Your concern for the fate of the Third World and your contempt for "the privileged" are almost as moving as your passionate defense of our right, as free Americans, to own single-driver SUVs for the grueling drive to Super Walmart.

FELLOW DUPES & LEFTISTS: Who has cesspool duty this week? Somebody spilled caviar in the shallow end.



P.S. Rox, are you by any chance Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend? I had no idea. I swear.

There are single driver SUVS?

I WANT ONE! I WANT ONE!

Are they like the big SUVs... you know the bigger than trailer homes? (Is that how you spell trailer?) Is the seat in the middle and does it slide out so you can lie down facing forward with it like the Batmobile in Batman Begins? That would be FUCKING awesome!

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

ROXANNE: Your concern for the fate of the Third World and your contempt for "the privileged" are almost as moving as your passionate defense of our right, as free Americans, to own single-driver SUVs for the grueling drive to Super Walmart.

FELLOW DUPES: Who has cesspool duty this week? Somebody spilled caviar in the shallow end.



P.S. Rox, are you by any chance Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend? I had no idea. I swear.

Ha ha, have your fun. Really. But when the party dies down, I invite you to pick up the issue of World Bank corruption. It really is a cesspool, Plus, this is getting philosophical, but the entire central planning model on which it is based has proven such a disaster whenever and wherever it's tried that the entire institution should be shut down. At best it will never be more than a nozzle through which rent-seeking special interests can get large amounts of corporate welfare. At worst - well, that's what it is right now. A friend to dictators and Cayman Island bank owners.