One thing that struck me about the attack on the World Trade Center was the number of financial firms whose offices were destroyed. Granted, the towers were walking distance from the NYSE (Maria Bartiromo ran the distance backwards in heels so as to not miss anything. Now that’s a serious reporter). When I heard that the International Monetary fund and the World Bank had offices there, I thought surely that was the real reason for the attacks: disrupt the global bankers; disruption to the American economy was bonus. If you think this is preposterous, then you don’t understand how many people think that the World Bank and the IMF do more harm than good.
Fast forward to today’s news that Bush’s pick for head of the World Bank is none other than Iraq campaign “architect” Paul Wolfowitz. Please be so kind as to ignore last week’s news that he wasn’t even in the running, that maybe they would support someone like incompetent ex-CEO Carly Fiorina. Maybe they had to find someone whose lack of qualifications was more subtle.
This is not a done deal, however. Apparently — although the President of the United States traditionally gets his way — there are 24 directors who have to arrive at some kind of consensus. And Reuters is willing to make a headline out of the truth that Wolfowitz is a “magnet for criticism.” That is an understatement.
Oh, and why is that? For good reason! Bottom line, he made Iraq into a bigger mess than it already was, and now we want to make him head of the World Bank. Given his record — here are four biographies — I wouldn’t hire him as the shift manager in a Dairy Queen. I certainly wouldn’t buy a used car from him.
As this comes on the heels of appointing a UN Ambassador who has publicly called for the disbandment of the UN, I am forced to wonder what President Bush is thinking: That America is so powerful as to force its will upon the world? That the European Union really ought to have more influence in the world? Or maybe that it just doesn’t matter, since the Apocalypse is coming any day now.
Or, is this a smoke bomb designed to make us look away from all the truly insidious things happening in our nation’s capital these days?