Would you if no one held you accountable?

The name of the game for Bush & Company is NEPOTISM.

Friends at the World Bank have been griping about Wolfie's girlfriend for a couple of years... she got star treatment, primo position, and was given the best projects, despite a less than stellar career before taking up with Wolfie.

If you are one of the insiders rah-rahing for Bush & Co., you get the contracts, the jobs, the appointments -- all translate to money in your pocket.

And if you're not rah-rahing loud or fast enough, you get axed, or indicted, or maybe a one-way trip to Guantanamo...

Wolfowitz extreme partisanship is an embarassment for America in terms of the world's view of the World Bank -- and now having his flunky girlfriend on the big fat payroll just adds to the dishonor that Wolfowitz and Bush have brought on America.

Even the Americans at the World Bank are so disgusted with Wolfowitz -- you can imagine what the non-US folks are saying...

P.S. Don't miss the New YOrker profile of Wolfie...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/09/070409fa_fact_cassidy

Because honestly, that's teh only way he's going to get punished.

My favorite thing about this is that the World Bank often conditions aid to a developing country on the country showing progress in elimination of governmental waste and corruption.

Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.

"Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."

That's really all you need to know about this incident.

*sigh* I don't know which is more sickening -- that Wolfowitz and other such people don't expect to be held accountable for anything, or that they're probably CORRECT in that expectation?

What's wrong with Americans these days anyway? Where's the outrage over such overt corruption and the blatant impunity with which Wolfowitz and others thumb their noses at us?

but one has to wonder if her silence was also being purchased.

Silence about what, you ask? Who knows. It could be any number of things.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but isn't this affair now in the past tense?

Would somebody please explain how putting Wolfie's mistress in a close-to-$200K job at the State Department will "balance the interests of the institution and the rights of the staff member in an exceptional and unprecedented situation."

This is hardly exceptional or unprecedented. It's the oldest game being played in the big boardrooms. Incompetent obnoxious guy gets a big fat job he doesn't deserve and rewards himself by giving his sack-mate a similar perk so neither of them have to feel less than over-paid and super important. Instead of stuffing currency in someone's g-string, he's handing out a juicy payday and a bucketload of status at someone else's expense.

The idea that this is couched (sorry, couldn't help it) in the rhetoric of protecting Wolfowitz' right to screw around on the job is absurd...even for this crew. The World Bank. Is there no place these guys haven't turned into a circus of the intellectually and ethically challenged? If it was a problem to have her around...maybe she should have found another job. A real one. On the other hand, I've seen the Michael Moore video of him licking his comb...she's probably earning every cent.

This one seems ripe for the MSM? Old guy, pretty younger woman, office romance (was one of them married at the time?), pay off on the tax-payer's dime.

But, alas, the MSM is still asleep on the job and this get's no coverage, none, ziltcho.

Seriously, she had to sleep with Paul Wolfowitz. Many would require a much higher salary to do that job!

Wolfie's Eva Braun is of no concern to me. His position and influence regarding the illegal effort of pre-emptive warfare is of great importance. If there is justice, he will be in front of the Hague in chains explaining what, why and how he contributed to the crimes against the peace and war crimes that occured as a result of our illegal invasion of the sovereign state of Iraq.

Let's not forget that the World Bank serves pretty much as the carrot and the stick when it comes to globalization. It's not a nice institution. That's one of the reasons a Neocon architect runs the thing.

They, along with USAID and other lending institutions exist to serve the behavior in the following quote from John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man".

That is what we EHMs do best: we build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy running our biggest corporations, our government, and our banks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, EHMs provide favors. These take the form of loans to develop infrastructure -- electric generating plants, highways, ports, airports, or industrial parks. A condition of such loans is that engineering and construction companies from our own country must build all these projects. In essence, most of the money never leaves the United States; it is simply transferred from banking offices in Washington to engineering offices in New York, Houston, or San Francisco.

Despite the fact that the money is returned almost immediately to corporations that are members of the corporatocracy (the creditor), the recipient country is required to pay it all back, principal plus interest. If an EHM is completely successful, the loans are so large that the debtor is forced to default on its payments after a few years. When this happens, then like the Mafia we demand our pound of flesh. This often includes one or more of the following: control over United Nations votes, the installation of military bases, or access to precious resources such as oil or the Panama Canal. Of course, the debtor still owes us the money -- and another country is added to our global empire.

When your daily business involves corrupt behavior, it's tough to know when you've gone over the line. Yes, she is at the State Department but that backs up the quote. The State Department and the World Bank can have these arrangements because of their common goal of, apparently, World Domination.