Institutions matter more than Gonzales, Wolfowitz

[struggle4progress]

Posted on Fri, Apr. 20, 2007

BY RUTH MARCUS
Washington Post

The central question in the debate over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz is one that no one seems to be asking: What is best for the institutions they head? ~snip~

Why should Gonzales go? Let me count the ways. He has lost the confidence of lawmakers -- at least any who've been paying attention to his shifting stories and aren't reflexively supportive of an administration official. He's created turmoil and undercut morale in U.S. attorneys' offices across the country. He's shown himself to be a grossly negligent manager. ~snip~

The Wolfowitz situation is murkier, and in the end the bureaucratically inert bank may rouse itself to fire him. For a supposedly smart man, Wolfowitz behaved in an extraordinarily stupid way when he personally dictated the details of his girlfriend's generous pay and promotion package. Yes, the board of directors' ethics committee told Wolfowitz to deal with the matter and have Shaha Riza transferred out of the bank, but he handled it in a way guaranteed to make matters worse. ~snip~

http://www.kansas.com/205/story/49318.html