Wolfowitz tapped to head World Bank
Pentagon official to replace James Wolfensohn
The Associated Press
Updated: 9:35 a.m. ET March 16, 2005
WASHINGTON – President Bush will recommend that Defense Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz take over as head of the World Bank, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
The administration began notifying other countries that Wolfowitz was the U.S. candidate to replace replace World Bank President James Wolfensohn. He is stepping down as head of the 184-nation development bank on June 1 at the end of his second five-year term.
What an Orwellian nightmare. Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank. John Bolton at the United Nations.
President Bush, why did you go to Europe again?
I have a message for many of the progressive and centrist voices who were advising John Kerry and providing general foreign policy punditry before the election. Many of you said that neocons were going down — that Iraq had been a disaster — that America was at its limits and everyone could see that.
You might recall that I said that there was no empirical evidence that neocons had suffered at all from the consequences of their role in making foreign policy and that I (and a few others) expected the neoconservative grip on the helm of American foreign policy to remain tight and formidable.
You scoffed. This is not an “I told you so” moment — but I do believe that progressives and centrists need to realize that this is not just a game where the other side gets to dominate for a while — and our team will get to call the shots in a couple of years.
There is something radically different about this time. In political science jargon, this is a period of major, dramatic discontinuity.
Stop underestimating the impact of these people and what is going on.
That is what Senator Feingold, Senator Chafee, Senator Lugar, Senator Hagel and others need to weigh.
Do they want to keep empowering this neoconservative machine?
— Steve Clemons
P.S. Der Tagesspiegel Washington Bureau Chief Malte Lehming just wrote to me, “Maybe Bill Kristol should be nominated as successor to Kofi Annan, or Richard Perle. And James Woolsey should get UNICEF.”
Wake me up when it’s over.
— Steve Clemons
