Inappropriate Content: The World Bank

The New York Times covers Bush's choice of Paul Wolfowitz to run the World Bank. Wolfowitz, the article points out, has a doctrate in international relations and experience in the State department and Foreign Service, whereas other candidates to head the World Bank had experience in things like banking and finance.

(Or, in one case, platinum albums. But we won't get into that.)

In any case, Wolfowitz at the World Bank doesn't upset me too much. If he really is as radical as he seems, there's not much damage he can do there. If he's not, he'll be able to do a lot of good—the World Bank was where Robert McNamara went to be a good samaratin after he left the DoD. Either way, “"We'll have to swallow Wolfowitz like we swallowed John Bolton, since this is what we now know the administration means by effective multilaterialism," said a foreign diplomat here who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.”

The interesting this is what happens with Wolfowitz's old job:

In Washington, the appointment removes Mr. Wolfowitz from the president's inner circle and a skilled bureaucratic in-fighter from the Pentagon. It clears the way for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to take further control of Iraq policy, and opens the field for possible successors to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, whose future is a constant source of speculation in Washington...

Mr. Bush appeared expansive and almost light-hearted at the news conference, and he was clearly reveling in the developments in Lebanon and Iraq, where he asserted that democratization was on the rise. But he also, for the first time, made clear the limits of his patience with Iran - to which he extended modest new offers of American incentives last week to give up its nuclear program. He said it had only one chance to take the deal he had offered along with France, Germany and Britain.

Annia Ciezadlo deconstructs the idea that the Iraq invasion is the cause of the democracy movement in Lebanon, or even more than tangentally connected to it. Back to the press confrence.

Iran, he said, "must permanently abandon enrichment and reprocessing" of nuclear material, a step the Iranians have so far insisted they will not take. "The understanding is we go to the Security Council if they reject the offer," he said. "And I hope they don't."

Yet he set no timelines, and said at the end of his news conference that "there's a certain patience required in order to achieve a diplomatic objective."

I'm tempted to regress into Bush-bashing. But I'm an adult, and I can excercise self-control.

Mr. Bush also defended his administration's policy of "rendering" terror suspects to nations that have been suspected of using torture, saying that he was never knowingly allowing anyone to be sent abroad so that they could be subject to interrogation techniques not permitted in the United States. The United States sends suspects "back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured," he said. "That's the promise we receive. This country does not believe in torture." But then, almost as an aside, he added: "We do believe in protecting ourselves."

Oh, screw self-control. “Hey, semi-theocratic, authoritarian regime with a long history of torturing people? You promise not to torture this guy, right? Greeeat!” That article should have read, “Bush also defended the indefensible.” Wouldn't be exaggerating in the slightest to say that. Not. Even. A. Little.