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The group blog of The American Prospect

THE WOLFOWITZ ENDGAME. More indication that Paul Wolfowitz's goose is cooked at the World Bank; the board will hear Wolfowitz's testimony tomorrow and make a decision on Wednesday. Meanwhile, if you can get past the utterly glaring and completely unspoken flip-floppery it represents on his part, Sebastian Mallaby's punchy column on Wolfowitz and the bank is definitely worth a look. The former Wolfowitz defender finally calls for him to resign. But more importantly, he makes good points about the one supposed substantive claim advanced in defense of Wolfowitz's tenure: his zealous anti-corruption approach to development. The thing is, Wolfowitz was hardly a pioneer in addressing corruption issues as a major tenet of development; his outlook on it was simplistic, poorly worked out, and unsystematic; and he implemented anti-corruption policies in a spectacularly ineffective and counterproductive way. Read Mallaby on this -- he's much meaner than I am.

--Sam Rosenfeld



COMMENTS

What I cannot comprehend is why Bush hasn't asked Wolfowitz to resign now that he's clearly gone. Didn't the European countries approach the Bushies and say they could name his replacement as long as he left voluntarily? What's the next US President supposed to do, go to the finance ministers of European countries and say "I"m sorry the last guy was so intransigent; can I please have control of my development bank back?"? Without being laughed out of the room?

In most cases in the US, when it's clear they're not going to win, the Bushies give up the ghost (e.g. withdrawing nominations, pulling bills he might be forced to veto). Why not this time?

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