Wolfy!

I said that I was surprised back in the day when Bush appointed Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank. Today there's a story in the Washington Post about Wolfowitz coming under fire:

For Wolfowitz, Slings and Arrows

Growing hostility within the World Bank toward its president, Paul D. Wolfowitz, is raising questions about his ability to lead the big lending institution and raise money for a fund that assists the developing world.

Wolfowitz's tenure, contentious from the start because of his earlier role as an architect of U.S. policy in Iraq, has been marred in recent months by a series of controversies. World Bank staffers disclosed that a woman with whom Wolfowitz is romantically involved received big pay raises from the bank. Sensitive board minutes regarding China have been leaked to the press, and blistering criticism has been leveled at Wolfowitz on an internal electronic bulletin board.

This reminded me of another article I read in the New Yorker a week or two ago that looked more into the personality of Wolfowitz.

The Next Crusade

On a wall of the mosque was some ornate writing in Arabic. “Is that the Fatiha?” Wolfowitz asked, referring to a passage in the Koran. No, the imam replied, explaining that the writing was from another passage. Wolfowitz taught himself Arabic in the nineteen-eighties, when he was working at the State Department. (He also speaks French, German, Hebrew, and Indonesian.) Last year, during a visit to a mosque in eastern China, he recited a prayer from the Koran in Arabic. This time, as he was leaving the mosque, he encountered a dozen or so news photographers who had gathered to document his visit. Bending down to change back into his shoes, Wolfowitz removed a slipper, revealing a large hole in the toe of one gray wool sock. Then he removed the other slipper, exposing another hole. Shigeo Katsu, the World Bank’s vice-president for Europe and Central Asia, tried to step between Wolfowitz and the photographers, but it was too late. The camera shutters clicked.

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