Wolfowitz resignation deal?

[Lanya]

April 30, 2007
Wolfowitz Resignation Deal in the Works

wolfow.jpg

Behind the scenes of the gladiatorial battle that will take place between Paul Wolfowitz and the World Bank Board today are efforts by his lawyer, Robert Bennett, and the Bank staff to negotiate terms of Wolfowitz's departure.

According to some insiders, Wolfowitz wants "some acknowledgment" of the Bank Board's complicity in the messy circumstances surrounding his and Shaha Riza's situation.

Secondly, allegedly on June 1st, Wolfowitz becomes eligible for some large financial bonus -- for performance and time on the job. One estimate puts this figure at about $400,000. Wolfowitz wants to make sure those funds are credited to his private bank account before saying farewell to an institution that has come to despise him.

Both sides have threatened each other with slow, painful, drip-drip approach to the release of damaging information that each side has about the other.

One blast in the battle are revelations that it costs the Bank a whopping $5 million per year to pay for Wolfowitz's security detail. Others have told me of Wolfowitz's failure to discipline aide Kevin Kellems for equally whopping violations of Bank protocol -- particularly while traveling on Bank business.

Wolfowitz is angry at the Bank at all those other than his closest spear-carriers. At one level, he does not want to resign and wants to tear the World Bank apart by forcing escalation in this war. But others -- particularly Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson -- have made it clear behind the scenes that a negotiated outcome that saves some face for Wolfowitz will give all sides an opportunity to push what one Paulson insider calls "the reset button."

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002098.php

[Mucho]

I didnt believe this story until I got to the $400000 part. Money trumps guilt, innocence, morals and even hypocracy to Repubs. Heck it trumps everything. Nixon only resigned to keep his Presidential pension.

[The_Professor]

I have yet to fully comprehend why all the hooplah over this Wolfowitz "thing". Okay, he helped his girlfiriend get a job. Like this doesn't happen anywhere! (sarcastic). Wrong thing to do, but not Earth-shattering. Big whoop...

As far as the reason why Nixon resigned, I would hope he did it to save the nation even more grief.

I wonder, Knute, if Nixon were a Democrat, would you be so punishing as to his motives?

[Lanya]

Maybe this will explain why it's a big deal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR2007041201822.html

[BT]

Okay, he helped his girlfiriend get a job.

Not true. She already had the job at the world bank when he took the job. The world bank ethics committee recomended that she take a job at State, which she did and since it was at a higher pay grade she got a raise.

The ethics committee reviewed the transfer and compensation a second time and still found no problems.

So your initial instinct as to wondering what all the hoopla is all about was correct.

This is political infighting at its most nefarious.

Keep in mind who is fanning the flames.

[Mucho]

I have yet to fully comprehend why all the hooplah over this Wolfowitz "thing". Okay, he helped his girlfiriend get a job. Like this doesn't happen anywhere! (sarcastic). Wrong thing to do, but not Earth-shattering. Big whoop...

As far as the reason why Nixon resigned, I would hope he did it to save the nation even more grief.

I wonder, Knute, if Nixon were a Democrat, would you be so punishing as to his motives?

Sometimes it is difficult to get a criminal on his actual evil deeds . Al Capone went to prison for taxes, not murder. Wolfie is similar.
Nixon resigned for a decent reason? You really are a sucker, Prof.

I am just as hard on evil & stupid  Dems than similar Repubs. I hated Johnson then almost as much as Bushidiot now and I was equally thrilled when he decided not to run. His motives sucked as well.

[The_Professor]

I have yet to fully comprehend why all the hooplah over this Wolfowitz "thing". Okay, he helped his girlfiriend get a job. Like this doesn't happen anywhere! (sarcastic). Wrong thing to do, but not Earth-shattering. Big whoop...

As far as the reason why Nixon resigned, I would hope he did it to save the nation even more grief.

I wonder, Knute, if Nixon were a Democrat, would you be so punishing as to his motives?

I am just as hard on evil & stupid  Dems than similar Repubs. I hated Johnson then almost as much as Bushidiot now and I was equally thrilled when he decided not to run. His motives sucked as well.

I am glad to hear it, Knute.

[Amianthus]

I am just as hard on evil & stupid  Dems than similar Repubs. I hated Johnson then almost as much as Bushidiot now and I was equally thrilled when he decided not to run. His motives sucked as well.

I am glad to hear it, Knute.

Of course, it's not true, either.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Wolfowitz has made more money in the last five years than most people with his with his credentials make in a lifetime. And for what" for helping to foist a totally unnecessary and unwinnable war, incompetently planned, upon his country. He won't be paying for his huge mistakes.

As for his girlfriend, her huge and unjustified raise is the issue: she is making more than most higher-ranking people in the State Department, and she isn't even a god-damned real American.

And still, Wolfie wants more. And more and more.

what an unspeakable turd!

[BT]

As for his girlfriend, her huge and unjustified raise is the issue: she is making more than most higher-ranking people in the State Department, and she isn't even a god-damned real American.

She was given the raise to put her at mid level in her state department pay grade commensurate with her experience.

This is just the noise machine at work. They will slink off to the next issue soon, garbage tops clanging like some idiot marching parade.

[Mucho]

As for his girlfriend, her huge and unjustified raise is the issue: she is making more than most higher-ranking people in the State Department, and she isn't even a god-damned real American.

She was given the raise to put her at mid level in her state department pay grade commensurate with her experience.

 

You swallow any shit they serve you. It only makes sense to the most lame of US that middle level SOS employees make more than the SoS herself.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/4282

[Xavier_Onassis]

Most of the worst blunders in US foreign policy have been made by an elite cadre of Yalies or foreigners.

I have no idea whether Wolfie's girlfriend is competent or not, but just because Wolfie gets a bone at the World Bank should not mean that the State Department should suddenly find a previously unrecognized need for someone in a top-level position at the State Department at $200K +. One needs to recognize that her $200K is addition to HUGE perks and allowances that real jobs would never include.
 
The entire situation is fishy beyond belief.

Wolfie f*cks up bigtime in foreign policy, so now he gets kicked upstairs to the World Bank. Juniorbush's main effect in the world has to make the rest of the world hate the US for starting a useless and stupid colonial war, and putting Wolfowitz in this job only adds to the hate.

It's like the asshole Republicans were trying to find a rhyme for LBJ putting MacNamara in the WB after he screwed up with Vietnam.

 Wolfie, for whatever reason, cannot run the WB, because the entire staff there hates his guts. He can't fire them, and the WB won't do much of anything useful until he is out.

[BT]

The bank has a different payscale than the department of state.

Don't let those pesky facts bite you on the ass.

According to the documents on the bank's website, it was the ethics committee's own idea — not Wolfowitz's — to give Riza a promotion as she was being moved out for four years. She was transferred to the State Department to work on a grass-roots democracy project that has been praised by Secretary Condoleezza Rice. She was given the mid-range salary for her new level. This was a lot of money, but it was based on the bank's existing pay scales. It was certainly not a corrupt favor to a girlfriend.

The most amazing thing is that all the facts were reviewed for a second time by the World Bank ethics committee last year, and again it found nothing wrong. The chairman of the ethics committee pronounced in a Feb. 28, 2006, letter that "the ethics committee decided that the allegations … do not appear to pose ethical issues." It is hard to square the record with the entertaining claim that the World Bank's president somehow concocted a do-nothing job for his girlfriend. It's a bum rap, and one that women professionals in dual-career families might worry about.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wedgwood17apr17,1,4221206,print.story

[Mucho]

Nice deflection, but you didnt confront the fact at hand you only spun around the truth that your original lie  by quoting a known RW hack  .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Wedgwood

[BT]

Nice deflection, but you didnt confront the fact at hand you only spun around the truth that your original lie  by quoting a known RW hack  .

The piece was published in the LA Times.  A known left wing rag.