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April 25, 2007
NYTimesWatch: The Lynching Of Paul Wolfowitz
They say even a stopped clock is right twice a day. But in a world where miracles are in short supply, imagine our surprise when the Grey Lady not only stumbled across the Truth, but (mirabile dictu!) found it fit for our rough, untutored eyes:
“There is no one issue that is motivating people,” said Robert B. Holland III, a Texas businessman who served as the United States member of the bank’s board until last year and who is a strong supporter of Mr. Wolfowitz. “There is a built-in ideological opposition to Wolfowitz that was there from day one. The opposition has been looking for any opportunity to exploit to get him out of there.”Mr. Holland said that Mr. Wolfowitz had sought from the outset to trim the bank’s bureaucracy and enforce new standards of honesty in countries receiving bank assistance.
But such steps as cutting off money to programs and countries suspected of graft alienated two groups of officials: the bank’s 24-member board of directors, which runs the bank’s daily affairs in tandem with Mr. Wolfowitz, and a group of 30 or so vice presidents and their equivalent.
Mildly intrigued by this tiny grain of wheat amongst the usual piles of chaff in the pages of the Times, the half vast editorial staff went searching for more. But alas! the crack investigative reporting staff at the Times consider "bank sentiment" more relevant than checking into the actual facts relating to the charges against Mr. Wolfowitz:
Bank officials said that after several days of canvassing hundreds of employees, about 25 vice presidents of the bank were preparing to document that the overwhelming majority of the employees favor Mr. Wolfowitz’s departure.
Since the Times is not interested in the facts surrounding this scandal, those interested in the truth must look elsewhere. The Washington Post is a good starting place. This weekend's Op-Ed pages should give the high tech lynch mob cause for sober reflection:
The allegations against Mr. Wolfowitz, which have angered many bank employees, are by now familiar. After arriving at the bank in the summer of 2005, he arranged a generous employment package for his companion, Shaha Riza, then a senior communications officer at the bank with expertise in Middle East affairs. These terms mandated a salary increase from $132,660 to $193,590, assigned her to a job outside the bank and laid out a path to further promotion and raises. This has been characterized as an underhanded deal that undermines Mr. Wolfowitz's campaign against corruption in poor countries applying for World Bank aid.Unfortunately, that thumbnail sketch omits some highly relevant facts. It was Mr. Wolfowitz who, before taking over at the bank, called the potential conflict of interest to the attention of the bank's ethics committee. He asked to be recused from any personnel decisions involving Ms. Riza. The committee agreed that a conflict existed, but it said that could probably be solved only by Ms. Riza leaving the bank, either permanently or on loan to another agency. The committee also told Mr. Wolfowitz that, if she chose to go elsewhere, Ms. Riza should be given a raise because she already had been short-listed for a promotion. So when Mr. Wolfowitz dictated her new terms of employment he was responding in part to the committee's instructions. Further raises were intended to be equal to what she might have earned had she stayed at the bank, responding to the committee's advice that she receive "compensation to offset negative career impact" from her reassignment.
Was the package nonetheless too generous, even by cushy World Bank standards? The executive directors should answer that question. But there's a relevant fact here, too. The ethics panel reviewed the situation again a half-year later, in February 2006, after receiving an anonymous complaint from a bank employee precisely on the issue of excessive pay. Once again it found, "on the basis of a careful review," that the allegations "do not appear to pose ethical issues appropriate for further consideration by the Committee."
But even the Post's analysis lacks context. Fuller disclosure of the facts surrounding L'Affaire Wolfowitz should profoundly disturb his critics, progressives, and ardent feminists: The entire, sad affair is well bracketed by three excerpts released by the Ethics committee of the World Bank:
Exhibit One:
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.
Exhibit Two:
July 27, 2005 – Memo from Ethics Committee Chairman Ad Melkert to PW“Having considered different options, the EC advises:
a) That the staff member will be relocated to a position beyond (potential) supervising influence by the President and therefore will withdraw from the current selection procedure for job promotion within the MENA department;
b)That at the same time 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 as confirmed by her shortlisting for the current job process and as consistent with the practice of the Bank;
Exhibit Three:
April 9, 2007 – Memo from Shaha Riza to Chairman of the Ethics Committee“I have now been victimized for agreeing to an arrangement that I have objected to and that I did not believe from the outset was in my best interest. My effort to accommodate the Board’s Ethics Committee and avoid creating distractions for Staff, Board and Management from their noble mission while protecting my interest, has only resulted in the most vicious public attacks on me.
“I would like to reiterate that I did not wish to leave the Bank and I did not, and do not expect any special considerations. My commitment to the mission of the Bank is unshakeable and I still believe that my career and professional future is inextricably linked to this great institution and I hope, and would very much like, to return to the pursuit of my career from within it as soon as possible.”
So in short, Paul Wolfowitz, a Jew, committed the crime of having a sexual liason with Shaha Riza, a Muslim.
For this "crime", which he openly disclosed to the board of directors of the World Bank at the time he joined that institution, he and his lover are now being lynched in the press. How, exactly, was Mr. Wolfowitz supposed to behave?
He disclosed the relationship.
Ms. Riza, an exceptionally well-qualified female employee, was forced to withdraw her name from a shortlist of candidates for a better paid position within the Bank. On the recommendation of the Ethics Committee she was transferred outside the World Bank; a move she did not want to make as she would have preferred to remain right where she was. The sole reason for moving Ms. Riza was to avoid conflict of interest and place her in "a position beyond (potential) supervising influence by the President".
So for the crime of having a private, consensual sexual relationship, two unmarried people who never lied about their affair and bent over backwards to comply with World Bank regulations and the recommendations of the Ethics committee are being crucified in the press. So much for the cries of the uber-progressive community that sex is a private matter! They rushed to defend Bill Clinton against what they deemed "vicious partisan attacks" when he cheated on his wife, lied while under oath, and impeded an investigation into violations of sexual harrassment laws women fought for decades to see enacted.
Will they now defend Paul Wolfowitz, a unmarried man who behaved with honor; cheated on no one, promptly disclosed his relationship to the Ethics Committee, recused himself as required by World Bank regulations, and as a result has been vilified in the press for following the written recommendations of the World Bank Ethics Committee, which, if we are to believe his detractors, are profoundly unethical?
Dick Meyer has it right. Our public bloodlust must be sated, and Paul Wolfowitz makes the perfect victim:
It isn't hard to understand why there are so many character lynchings. There are a lot of rats and phonies in this world. Is the national supply of famous creeps higher than at other points in our history? Absolutely, simply because the supply of media is so vastly greater. More media, more bandwidth to create celebrities and then stalk them.And with the Internet and ubiquitous television, geographic proximity is no longer necessary for a mob mentality to arise. We have virtual mobs. For briefing, shiny sick moments all eyes are focused on Imus — or Anna Nicole, Michael Jackson, Jack Abramoff or Ken Lay.
Our media and our culture have become expert at creating celebrities and other phonies.
We can turn a contestant on a game show into a household name in a week. And like some cheesy Hollywood threat: "We made you, and we can break you."
So many of the celebrities in politics, sports and entertainment are undeserving, greedy, hubristic, ostentatious, coarse, egotistical or vulgar. Of course we love it when they crash and burn. We wouldn't be human if we didn't. Some of them deserve everything they get.
And spotting these parasitic unworthies, calling them out, cheering on their demises seems like the only tool we have to fight societal fakery and fraud. How else can we fight back this amorphous enemy but to collect scalps? We wait vigilantly for their flameouts to lighten the loads of our lives with a little innocent gloating.
I do this in my column all the time. An aspect of this process is, of course, necessary to check the people who have power and abuse it. The game is different for people who hungrily seek fame, fortune and power; they're in the game by choice, they know the stakes and the risks and they want to play. That doesn't mean we should be quite so happy when they fall.
The problem is that we are devouring ourselves. We can create celebrities, but not leaders. We generate fame, but not honor.
Perhaps the most we can do, you and I, is try not to let this unforgiving quality of public life seep into our private lives.
No, Mr. Meyer. We can do more. And you, especially, must do more. It is your job to find out, and report, the truth. To do anything less is professional malpractice. And you ought to be ashamed.
We all should.
Posted by Cassandra at April 25, 2007 07:05 AM
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Comments
I have to say I think that it's more likely the reason Mr. Wolfowitz is in trouble is that he's Paul Wolfowitz, author of a military and political policy that the career internationalists at the World Bank find abhorrent. That is, I think, all there is to it -- they hate his guts, hate everything he believes, and don't want their organization tainted by his presence. Indeed, I can see how someone of the internationalist mindset would view him as an affront to everything the World Bank stands for.
Which is, of course, exactly why he needs to be there... but that's another story.
I don't think, however, that it's fair to suggest that their motivation is to "lynch" a "Jew" for "having... sex" with "a Muslim." That formulation seems like an unfair use of images and language that are highly emotionally charged in America.
Plainly, it's about hate, but it's not about race-hate or lynching Jews. It's about hating Mr. Wolfowitz for what he believes and stands for.
Posted by: Grim at April 25, 2007 12:38 PM
Then you explain to me what this case is about, Grim?
The entire pretext for this "offense" that he had a sexual relationship with this woman - moreover, one which violates the standard progressive meme that there is a Jewish neocon zionist cabal that hates Muslims and is hell bent on oppressing Palestine and wreaking havoc on the Middle East because of their religion. It's part of the whole moral equivalence thing that equates Israel's desire not to get wiped off the map with terrorists and suicide bombers.
Their whole relationship undercuts that thesis.
When you look at the evidence in this case... umm... well, it turns out there just isn't much evidence that Wolfowitz has done a single thing he can be fired for. But for his relationship with Ms. Riza (which, let's recall predated his employment by the World Bank, was fully disclosed and is NOT against regulations) he would not be in this predicament. Her subsequent pay raise and change of employment occurred ONLY BECAUSE he followed Bank Ethics committee regulations and THEN complied with there WRITTEN recommendations that she leave the bank to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.
So why haven't all the usual players who scream that sexual relationships ought to be off limits come to his defense?
Two reasons:
1. His political affiliations.
2. The inconvenient fact that when you examine both his actions and his personal life, they undercut everything the reality based community love to tell us about evil Joooos. And I do believe they are quite openly anti-Semitic. I did not intend to level the charge you are imputing to me, quite frankly. I ascribe this whole scandal to his affiliation with the White House. But I also think there are an awful lot of people who hate him because he is a Jew, and I have read openly antiSemitic remarks about him on many, many liberal sites over the last few weeks.
If you think that isn't part of this, you are really, really blind.
Almost willfully so.
Posted by: Cassandra at April 25, 2007 12:56 PM
All right, I'll tell you what it's about:
1) Internationalists disagree to the point of hatred with neoconservative philosophies, policies, programs, and activities. Wolfowitz was one of the chief neoconservatives behind a particularly hated policy, the invasion of Iraq.
2) Internationalists believe their own organizations are a major -- the major! -- force for good in the world. Having a neocon put at the head of their organization is something they perceive as an intolerable insult, and an affront.
3) Therefore, he must go, and,
4) Any pretext will do.
5) This pretext happens to be the one that showed up.
Now, the test for that theory is this: if Wolfowitz were not involved in a relationship with this woman, but were instead involved in some sort of real estate deal that could be unfairly portrayed as shady, would they still be so set on ridding themselves of him? In other words, if you take the sex out of the occasion, and substitute some other pretext, would you still have this kind of dead-set reaction against him?
I'd say the answer is, without question, yes. They hate this particular man and want rid of him on any terms.
That this is a sexual charge seems accidental to me. It's really about him, personally.
Now, I'm familiar with the fact that "neoconservative" is, in some circles, a polite way of saying "bad Jew." Maybe some of these World Bank internationalists run in those circles; I don't know. I do know, though, that I firmly believe that if Wolfowitz were a Methodist instead -- but still otherwise the same guy, the guy who planned and started the Iraq war, the guy who advocates neocon theories about government and NGOs, now put in charge of their beloved World Bank -- they'd still be trying to get rid of him by any means that came to hand.
Say, if he were Newt Gingrich. I think they'd hate him just as much. Absolutely anything that could serve as an excuse for purging him would be good enough.
So, I don't think it's about the sex, or the Judaism. I think it's about the philosophy, and his particular actions. It's about him, in other words.
It's still unfair, and he should still be there. It's just that when you repeatedly use the word "lynching" and then add that "in short, Paul Wolfowitz, a Jew, committed the crime of having a sexual liason with Shaha Riza, a Muslim," you're making a charge.
I take you at your word that you hadn't thought of it in those terms. Probably Georgians are more sensitive to it -- we all learn about the lynching of Leo Frank in school.
Posted by: Grim at April 25, 2007 01:18 PM
Grim's not blind, he just fell into a gravity well. :)
(that's just a little joke; see his posting on B5)
I think (really, do I?) that the World Bank is one of those organizations that actually has the potential for making a positive difference, but only in some limited cases. The larger problem actually aludes to Grim's writings elsewhere about "4GW", or his illustrative metaphor of 'gravity wells'. There are a lot of 'failed' or failing nation states in the world, that get World Bank money. The loans that they get look like some 'positive' effort by the First World to help the Third World.
They are, in effect, nothing of the kind, IMHO. It is naked mercantilism by many, to funnel money through 'failing' nations states, and have them buy all kinds of stuff (some useful, some not) from the factories in the First World countries. Or just flat out bribes to buy good behavior.
I know. I work for one of those multi-national First World companies that does this very thing, and they couldn't be more proud of all the 'good things' they are doing for these people. And maybe they are, on one level. But the default level on World Bank loans is dreadful, and has been for some time.
But it is and has been a floating crap game, with bad loans left and right, and Wolfowitz has tried to call 'bullshit' on some of this action.
It just so happens he was nominated by the hated fascist Boosh, he's a Jew, and identified with the 'Neocon' intelligentsia.
That's three strikes, you're out!
The anti-semitic ugliness is just the usual crap thrown up by morons, for morons. It leaks into everything, and shows just how base and ugly this all is.
But at the next level, well, he was put into the job by "Boosh" (that's a French thing) which works for the normal popular propagandists know-it-alls; and at the capstone of intellectual attack, he's one of the dreaded 'Neocons'.
Don't doubt that this effort has 'invisible hands' at the highest levels of certain foreign governments (plus the usual dirtbags that want to play along), that want to maintain the 'floating crap game'. It's a game that is much like the 'oil for food' crapola that Kofi Annan, the UN and Iraq all played; only it's been going on for much longer.
Posted by: Don Brouhaha at April 25, 2007 01:18 PM
To be honest, I tend to associate the term "lynching" with blacks and not Jews, Grim. I would have used "pogrom" had I meant he was been targeted specifically on account of his Judaism rather than his politics.
I do think his Judaism is more incidental, but no less a part of it since there is a persistent belief in the 'reality based community' that the evil Joos somehow drove us into war in the ME. And believe me, I read several posts earlier this week on mainstream lib sites that were right up this alley - infuriating, and frightening to me as the future mother in law of a lovely Jewish girl who is a liberal Democrat, that the very people she considers like-minded spew such hatred.
Thank God not all of them do, but I was appalled that people were saying this stuff at all and not one word of remonstrance or reproach from either the proprietor of the site or other commenters.
And these are the people who want to pass hate speech laws? They ought to monitor their own sites.
Posted by: Cassandra at April 25, 2007 01:32 PM
It's true that blacks were (far) more often the victims of lynchings. It's therefore somewhat odd that the single most famous incident of lynching in American history was of a Jew, a Mr. Leo Frank who was accused of raping and killing a white girl named Mary Phagan. It's still taught, as I said, in Georgia schools; but even if it were not, the repercussions are with us today.
The 1915 lynching caused half of Georgia's Jews to leave the state (a state that had previously been, since before the time of George Washington, unusually friendly to Jews). The case was used by a prominent journalist named Tom Watson to rebuild the KKK, which had been destroyed by a combination of prosecution and backcountry fighting during the Reconstruction period.
It also caused Jews concerned about the shocking lynching, in defiance of the governor's orders and by a militia calling itself "the Knights of Mary Phagan," which was followed by the desecration of the body, to form a group to defend Jews against false charges.
This group was called the Anti-Defamation League.
I'm not surprised if you've never heard of it, since I don't usually encounter non-Georgians who have. Still, it was a major event in its day, and we have its echos with us yet.
Posted by: Grim at April 25, 2007 01:44 PM
Very, very good job on a very sad subject!
Posted by: Bob Leibowitz at April 25, 2007 03:00 PM
"I'm not surprised if you've never heard of it, since I don't usually encounter non-Georgians who have."
I'd never considered nor been aware that this is not a well known incident! Of course I am a born and reared (as is said down heah) Jawjan.
Posted by: bthun at April 25, 2007 03:53 PM
I was dimly aware that the KKK had been accused of being prejudiced against Jews (and I though Catholics for that matter) and the name Mary Phagan does ring a bell. So I'm sure I've heard the story.
But I spent my childhood in New England so it wouldn't have been such a big deal up there anyway. We were all taught Southerners had forked tongues and cloven hooves anyway. It warn't until I got all iggurant and stuff and become won that I learned differently.
Posted by: Cassandra at April 25, 2007 04:13 PM
Recommended reading:
"At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America", by Philip Dray (2002 Random House)
Posted by: Mark In Irvine at April 25, 2007 04:45 PM
I tend to agree with Grim that it's mostly the ties to GWB, the WH and the "Project For The New American Century" that are in the minds of PW's attackers. Oh, and that he's American.
Posted by: Mark In Irvine at April 25, 2007 04:46 PM
87% of the Jewish vote in the Federal 2006 election went to the Democrats. Liberal Jews have historically been one of the bases of the Modern Democratic Party.
As for Wolfowitz he should never been placed in a supervisory position from the woman with whomhe was committing adultery.
No company would allow that to take place.
Posted by: John Ryan at April 25, 2007 10:24 PM
Dear Stupid
That's you, Ryan.
If you had read the article, Wolfowitz notified the World Bank upon his ascension as president of his relationship with the lady in question, and recused himself from any management authority over her, and she was 'fast-tracked' for an upgrade by the Board of the World Bank, as she was going to leave the Bank and go to another position outside.
Christ on a crutch, at least read the linked articles before you pop-off.
Posted by: Don Brouhaha at April 25, 2007 10:52 PM
Sometimes the Oscar goes to the person who should have won it years before.
Sometimes criminals go to jail for tax evasion.
The event at hand is not the reason Wolfie is being excoriated.
Grim has it right.
Posted by: kindlingman at April 26, 2007 12:52 PM
"The event at hand is not the reason Wolfie is being excoriated."
True, but it do bring out the rest of the hyenas.
Posted by: bthun at April 26, 2007 01:51 PM
Hyenas don't need a reason, just prey......
Posted by: Sly2017 at April 26, 2007 02:25 PM
I think it's a hoot reading about what great detectives you folks think you are. Ever think of getting into Talk Radio or something? There's lots of folks what can't read that listens to that Talk Radio! Think about it!
Posted by: bloodstomper at April 29, 2007 02:04 AM
"There is a built-in ideological opposition to Wolfowitz that was there from day one."
You could call it ideological. Its probably more competence. Here is the guy who made a gross error of economic prediction -- that iraq could rebuild itself -- being put in charge of a large development institution. Can you imagine the nerve of people resisting?
Posted by: mara at April 29, 2007 03:26 PM
re: the statement by Miss Villainous Company: "So much for the cries of the uber-progressive community that sex is a private matter!" One could easily flip this sentiment to: How come conservatives, like this blog, are not salivating for a lynching of a sexual predator? As the saying goes, "Hipocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue."
Posted by: tr at May 10, 2007 03:27 PM
"Hipocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue."
Yes, we hear hypocrisy is a real bitch too.
Just how, in the name of God, is it "sexual predation" for a grown man to have a consensual relationship with an adult female?
But since we're playing quotations today, here's one for the pot:
"Against stupidity, the Gods themselves struggle in vain."
Posted by: Cassandra at May 10, 2007 03:37 PM