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The Purging of Paul Wolfowitz: an absurd non-scandal might cost the World Bank president his job
By Michael Weiss / May 7, 2007
When once confronted with a sneering remark about the Washington Post, I.F. Stone replied: "It's a great paper. You never know on what page you'll find a page-one story." One can play a similar game with the New York Times today: You never know in which paragraph you'll find the buried lede. It took me all of three (paragraphs, that is) to disinter the news item in this otherwise unshocking and unenlightening article entitled, "World Bank Panel Finds Wolfowitz at Fault; Aide Resigns":
Bank officials, speaking anonymously because the proceedings are supposed to be confidential, said that the special committee was still working today on what to recommend.
Breaking the rules is such a subjective enterprise these days. But at least Paul Wolfowitz must be smiling at the grim nostalgia of it all. At the Pentagon he was hobbled by leaks from "anonymous" officials at the State Department, and now as top dog at the World Bank he's being undone by a similar don't-ask-don't-cite practice of blabbing to the media.
As ambassador to Indonesia, Wolfowitz amassed plenty of experience in using "soft power" to coax an island dictatorship into overdue projects of reform and liberalization, if not total regime change. So whatever you think of his contribution to the state of modern Iraq, it can't quite be said he was unqualified for the presidency of the World Bank. In the grand Proustian cycle of embattled American war architects, this gig was already known as Credibility Regained, and Wolfowitz has always (and will always) hold up well in comparison with his predecessor as teller to the third world, Robert McNamara. A macabre joke has now been delivered at the World Bank's expense: You can defoliate jungles and rice paddies, and maximize peasant casualties in an illegal war to bail out French colonialism, but whatever you do, you must stay true to the wife.
At the outset of l'affaire Shaha, the Daily Mail quoted one Washington insider as saying: "[Wolfowitz's] womanizing has come home to roost. Paul was a foreign policy hawk long before he met Shaha, but it doesn't look good to be accused of being under the thumb of your mistress." (You know how it goes with centers of global financial power and things coming home to roost.)
Though apparently it wasn't Riza's influence on her boyfriend that scared the pinstriped pharisees. It was that she wasn't married to him. Shengman Zhang, the former Managing Director of the Bank, helped his wife Lingzhi Xu, a World Bank employee at a footling level compared to Riza, go from a "Level D" job status (valued at around $52,000) to a "Level G-G" job status (valued at around $123,000) in record time. According to Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal, Xu's fast-track success "never seems to have raised an eyebrow within the bank's management." It was the sort of by-the-book nepotism that everyone appreciates.
Riza, on the other hand, had been a longtime employee of the bank. She was shortlisted for promotion well before Wolfowitz got there, and her excellent job record would have assured her the same quantity of Condi-surpassing lucre for which she is now so notorious. One might still raise an eyebrow at this, however, were not Riza's ascent so demonstrably reluctant, so evidently coerced and thick with pettifogging nonsense as to make a total non-story out of her and her partner's travails.
The chairman of the World Bank Ethics Committee, Ad Melkert, was characterized by the New York Times on May 1 like this:
Mr. Melkert, a Dutch political figure active in the Labor Party in the Netherlands, said that instead of arranging for the salary and promotion package, Mr. Wolfowitz should have given the job in question to someone neutral.
That's cute. No mention here of the fact that Wolfowitz brought his personal relationship with Riza to the Ethics Committee's attention, and that Melkert was the one who instructed him not to recuse himself from Riza's reassignment. The following is a series of letters exchanged among Melkert, Wolfowitz and Xavier Coll, the Vice President of the World Bank's Human Resources, dating back to shortly after Wolfowitz's assumption of the bank presidency. These messages are worth reading in full:
POST A COMMENT
It’s a disgrace that he has any job better than outhouse cleaner.
end of story
Anyone who didn’t know that these adolescent sociopaths are antinomean either has refused to pay attention or is brain-damaged.
“So whatever you think of his contribution to the state of modern Iraq, it can’t quite be said he was unqualified for the presidency of the World Bank.”
You seem to share this view with the neocons. Wolfowitz failed in Iraq and he failed in the World Bank leaving a mess behind in each of these places. Just by accident? The world is bigger than the view of these narrow minded people greedy for power.
I don’t know how I didn’t see this article earlier. But Juan Cole’s Salon piece on Wolfowitz absolutely devastates all of Weiss and Hitch’s paltry defenses of the man. End of argument: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/05/14/wolfowitz/
“it was so clear that Bank staff would resist working with [Wolfowitz] the Straussian Dark Lord of the neocon cabal. But these fantasies are a product of activist culture generally…”
Gee Whiz Joey,
You surely don’t want to include C. Hitchens, Wolfy’s good friend and greatest defender as a promoter of “activist fantasies”? After all, it was Hitch who praised Wolfy’s Straussian deception in his very first Slate column: “Machiavelli in Mesopotamia”
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Thursday, Nov. 7, 2002, at 3:05 PM ET
“Part of the charm of the regime-change argument (from the point of view of its supporters) is that it depends on premises and objectives that cannot, at least by the administration, be publicly avowed. Since Paul Wolfowitz is from the intellectual school of Leo Strauss—and appears in fictional guise as such in Saul Bellow’s novel Ravelstein—one may even suppose that he enjoys this arcane and occluded aspect of the debate. For those lacking a similar gift for hidden meanings, the best way to appreciate the unstated case for war may be to examine the criticisms leveled by its opponents….”
Finance
Jack Abramoff
Leonard Abramson
George Akerlof
Madeleine Albright, on the Board of Directors of the New York Stock Exchange
Kenneth Arrow
Jules Bache
Charlene Barshefsky
Bernard Baruch
Gary Becker
Joshua Bekenstein
August Belmont
Marc Benioff, Goldman Sachs
Sandy Berger, chairman of Stonebridge International
Ben Bernanke
Lloyd Blankfein, CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs and highest paid Wall Street firm CEO in 2006
Leonard Blavatnik, owner of oil and chemical companies
Henry W. Bloch, co-founder of H&R Block
Richard Bloch, co-founder of H&R Block
Walter Block
Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg, mayor of New York, philanthropist
Richard C. Blum, Chairman and President of Blum Capital Partners, L.P.; owns 75% of the voting stock in Perini
W. Michael Blumenthal, former Secretary of the Treasury, business leader in many private firms
Ivan Boesky, corporate takeovers arbitrageur and insider trading convict
Joshua Bolten, Executive Director for Legal and Government Affairs at Goldman Sachs in London from 1994 to 1999
Eli Broad, real estate, insurance, philanthropist, art collector
William Browder
Abby Joseph Cohen, partner and chief U.S. investment strategist at Goldman Sachs
Manuel F. Cohen
Steven A. Cohen, billionaire hedge fund investor and founder of SAC Capital Management
William Cohen
Jim Cramer
Lester Crown
Stanley Druckenmiller
Kenneth Duberstein
Stuart E. Eizenstat, senior strategist at APCO Worldwide, Board of Advisors of the Global Panel Foundation
Jeffrey Epstein, private investor at Bear Stearns
Dalck Feith
Douglas J. Feith
Martin Feldstein
Arthur J. Finkelstein
Stanley Fischer
Kenneth L. Fisher
Robert Fogel
Martin Frankel
Benjamin H. Freedman
Jacob A Frenkel, Vice-Chairman of American International Group
Milton Friedman
Richard S. (Dick) Fuld, Jr., chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers
Steven Fulop, former partner at Goldman Sachs
Jeffrey Garten
Harold Glasser
Lewis Glucksman
Bela Gold
Marcus Goldman & Samuel Sachs, founders of Goldman Sachs
Tom Gores
Evan G. Greenberg, CEO of ACE Ltd.
Maurice R. Greenberg, former chairman and CEO of American International Group (AIG), the world’s largest insurance and financial services corporation
Joel Greenblatt
Alan Greenspan
Zvi Griliches
Sanford J. Grossman
Guggenheim family, business leaders, philanthropists & art patrons
Sidney Harman
John Harsanyi
Jerry A. Hausman
Ricardo Hausmann
Robert Heilbroner
Richard Holbrooke
Carl Icahn, billionaire Investments Takeovers
Otto Hermann Kahn
Loren N. Kaplan, President Of Mamalahoa Publishing/Rare Groove Urban Music Collective UMX (Jewish Father)
Henry Kaufman, on the board of directors of Lehman Brothers
Adam Kidan
Israel Kirzner
Henry Kissinger
David Klein
Lawrence Klein
Philip Morris Klutznick, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and owner of numerous malls and department stores
Jerome Kohlberg, Jr., co-founder of KKR leveraged buyout
Bruce Kovner, founder of Caxton Associates (hedge fund firm)
Robert Krausz
Henry Kravis, leveraged buyout pioneer and philanthropist co-founder of KKR
Paul Krugman
Simon Kuznets
Edward Lampert, billionaire founder of ESL Investments & Goldman Sachs
Frank Lautenberg, U.S. Senator and founder of Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP), the largest payroll and tax filing processor in the world
Thomas Lee, leveraged buyout specialist
Philip Lehman
Robert Lehman
Samuel D. Leidesdorf
Al Lerner, billionaire ex-chairman of MBNA and ex-owner of the Cleveland Browns
Randolph Lerner, billionaire chairman of MBNA
Dennis Levine
Gerald M. Levin, brokered the merger between AOL and Time Warner in 2000
Arthur Levitt
Steven Levitt
Jacob Lew
Peter Lewis, billionaire chairman of Progressive Insurance
Lewis Libby
Solomon Loeb
Harry Markowitz
Leo Melamed, founding chairman of the International Monetary Market
Robert C. Merton
André Meyer
Eugene Meyer, chairman of the Federal Reserve (1930-1933), president of the World Bank (1946)
Michael Milken, junk bond king & philanthropist
Henry Morgenthau, Jr., former Secretary of the Treasury under FDR, financial advisor to Israel
Roy Neuberger, financier & art dealer
Suze Orman
Ronald Perelman
Harvey Pitt
Michael Price, billionaire investor
Robert Reich
Marc Rich
George R. Roberts, billionaire co-founder of KKR leveraged buyout
Felix Rohatyn
Murray Rothbard
Rothschild family, has many holdings in both the USA and the UK, along with other European countries
Nathaniel Robert de Rothschild
Robert Rubin, former United States Secretary of the Treasury, executive at Citigroup, has served on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange, the Ford Motor Company, the Harvard Corporation, the New York Futures Exchange, and has held many other positions
Alexander Sachs
Jeffrey Sachs
Paul Samuelson
George D. Sax, Bussiness Entrepreneur, credited with the innovation of Drive-Through Banking
Jacob Schiff, financier & philanthropist
Mortimer L. Schiff, financier & Boy Scouts of America leader
Myron Scholes
Charles R. Schwab, founder and CEO of Charles Schwab Corp.
Stephen A. Schwarzman
William Schwartz, corporate director at Viacom
Jay Alan Sekulow
Nicole Seligman
Andrei Shleifer
Muriel Siebert, first woman to purchase a seat on NYSE
Martin Siegel
Greg Silvermaster
Jeffrey Skoll, billionaire former president of E-Bay and CEO of Participant Productions
Haym Solomon
Robert Solow
Rudolph Sonneborn
George Soros, financier & philanthropist
Ben Stein
Saul Steinberg
Michael Steinhardt
Sy Sternberg, Chairman and CEO of New York Life Insurance Company
Joseph E. Stiglitz
Lawrence Summers, former chief economist for the World Bank, former United States Secretary of the Treasury, former president of Harvard University
Henry Taub
David Tepper, Goldman Sachs
Laurence Tisch of Loews Corporation
Preston Robert Tisch of Loews Corporation
Jacob Viner
Paul Volcker
Warburg family
James Warburg
Max Warburg
Paul Warburg
Bruce Wasserstein, financier & current CEO of Lazard
Sandy Weill, ex-CEO of Citigroup, philanthropist
John Weinberg
Peter Weinberg
Harry Dexter White, American economist and senior U.S. Treasury department official
James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank (1995-2005)
Paul Wolfowitz, current (2005-) president of the World Bank
Dov Zakheim
Marc Zell
Robert Zoellick, managing director and chairman of Goldman Sachs’ International Advisors department
Martin Zweig
[edit] Retail and rental
See also: List of Jewish American fashion designers
Abraham Abraham
Eddie Antar and Sam Antar, founders of the now defunct Crazy Eddie consumer electronics chain
Brad Ascalon
Max Azria, founder of BCBG
Louis Bamberger
Eddie Bauer, founder of The Eddie Bauer
Arthur Blank & Bernie Marcus, founders of Home Depot, philanthropists
Kenneth Cole, founder of Kenneth Cole
Marc Ecko, founder of Ecko
Donald Fisher
Cynthia Harriss
John D. Hertz
Marc Jacobs, founder of Marc Jacobs, artistic director for Louis Vuitton
Donna Karan, founder of DKNY
Calvin Klein, founder of Calvin Klein
Senator Herbert Kohl or Wisconsin, owner of Kohl’s department stores
Ralph Lauren, founder of Polo Ralph Lauren, acquired Club Monaco
Julius Lederer
Beth Levine
Herbert Levine
Leon Levine, billionaire founder of Family Dollar
Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus
Morris Markin, founder of Checker Cabs
David May, founder of May Department Stores (Robinsons-May, Famous-Barr, Filene’s, Foley’s, Hecht’s, Kaufmann’s, L.S. Ayres, Marshall Field’s, Meier & Frank, Strawbridge’s & The Jones Store)
Isaac Mizrahi
Mervin G. Morris, founder of Mervyns
Zac Posen
Ida Rosenthal
Julius Rosenwald, head of Sears & Roebuck & Kmart, philanthropist
Lessing J. Rosenwald
Jay Schottenstein
Jerome Schottenstein
Isador Straus, head of Macy’s, Titanic victim
Nathan Straus
Levi Strauss, founder of Levi’s
Maurice Tempelsman, billionaire diamond merchant and industrialist
Leslie Wexner, founder of Victoria’s Secret, Limited Brands (Limited, Bath & Body Works, Express, White Barn Candle Co., Aura Science, Henri Bendel)
[edit] Real estate
Sheldon Adelson, billionaire property developer in Las Vegas, Nevada
Roland Arnall, billionaire owner of Ameriquest
Andre Balazs
Gary Barnett
Jack Benaroya, the largest commercial real estate developer in the U.S. state of Washington
Lee Bienstock
Donald Bren
Alan Casden, billionaire, partners with Blackacre Capital Management, real estate arm of hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management, and apartment operator AIMCO
Max Fisher
Issamar Ginzberg
Bernard Glieberman
Leona Helmsley
Robert P. Kogod
Charles Kushner
Samuel J. LeFrak
Ted Lerner of Lerner Enterprises (also involved heavily in sports)
William Levitt
Harvey Meyerhoff
Joseph Meyerhoff
Robert Moses
Bruce Ratner
Aby Rosen
Stephen M. Ross
Walter Shorenstein and Douglas Shorenstein of the Shorenstein Company, one of the United States’ largest and oldest privately owned real estate firms
Larry Silverstein, operator and the head of NYC’s Silverstein Properties. Silverstein is also the leaseholder of the World Trade Center towers that were destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks
Melvin Simon of the Simon Property Group, the largest developer of shopping malls in the United States
Robert H. Smith of Archstone-Smith Trust
Jerry Speyer, President and CEO of Tishman Speyer Properties, one of the leading owners, developers, fund managers, and operators of real estate in the world
Max Stern
Leonard N. Stern
Adolph Sutro
Alfred Taubman
Milton A. Wolf
Steve Wynn, casino resort developer
William Zeckendorf
Samuel Zell
Ira Zlotowitz
Jerry Zucker, governor, owner, and CEO of Hudson’s Bay Company
[edit] Cosmetics
Max Factor, Sr., cosmetics industrialist
Aaron Feuerstein
Diane von FĂĽrstenberg
Estée Lauder and family, cosmetic industrialist, founder of Estée Lauder Inc.
Leonard Lauder
Ronald Lauder
Charles Revson, cosmetics industrialist (Revlon)
Helena Rubinstein, cosmetics industrialist
[edit] Toys
Joshua Lionel Cowen, toy train manufacturer, founder of Lionel Corporation
Arnold Greenberg, CEO of Coleco
Ruth Handler, inventor of Barbie, founder of Mattel
Isaac Larian, founder of MGA Entertainment, the biggest privately owned toy company in the world
Charles Lazarus, founder of Toys R Us
Rose & Morris Michtom, inventors of the teddy bear
David Rosen, former CEO of SEGA
[edit] Food, food services, confectionery, etc.
S. Daniel Abraham
Louis Auster, inventor of egg cream
Burton Baskin & Irving Robbins, founders of Baskin Robbins
Eli M. Black
Gypsy Boots
Bronfman family (USA & Cananda) of the Seagram Company
Andrea Bronfman
Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben & Jerry’s
GĂ©rard Louis-Dreyfus
Joseph Friedman, inventor of the flexistraw
Jack Greenberg, CEO of McDonald’s
Roger Harvin, Former Pres, CEO, & Chairman of the Board of Church’s Chicken
Reuben Mattus, founder of Häagen-Dazs
Danny Meyer
William Rosenberg, founder of Dunkin’ Donuts
Howard Schultz, head of Starbucks, co-owner of Jamba Juice
[edit] Electronics
Beny Alagem, founder of Packard Bell
Ralph Baer, inventor of the video game console
Michael Dell, founder of Dell, philanthropist
Donna Dubinsky, co-founder of Palm Computing
Lee Felsenstein, moderator of the Homebrew Computer Club
Jerald G. Fishman, CEO of Analog Devices
Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel
Howard Jonas, founder of IDT Corp.
Eugene Kleiner, co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor, venture capitalist
Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO of Tyco International
Jaron Lanier, virtual reality products
Tommy Mottola, former head of Sony Music (converted)
Arthur Rock, hi-tech venture capitalist (Intel, Apple)
Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon Communications
Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore International
Andrew Viterbi & Irwin Jacobs, founders of Qualcomm
Edward Zander, CEO of Motorola, former COO and president of Sun Microsystems, a director at Seagate Technologies, former managing director at Silver Lake Partners
[edit] Software and Internet
Shai Agassi
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft (Jewish mother)[1]
Paul Baran
Nick Berg
Dan Bernstein, creator of qmail
Leonard Bosack, co-founder of Cisco Systems
Dan Bricklin & Bob Frankston, creators of Visicalc
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google [2]
Bram Cohen, creator of BitTorrent
Stephen M. Cohen
Mark Cuban, founder of Broadcast.com, owner of the Dallas Mavericks
Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle Corporation (Jewish mother[3], Jewish adoptive parents)
Milt Gabler
Rob Glaser, founder of RealNetworks
Yair Goldfinger, Arik Vardi, Sefi Vigiser, Amnon Amir & Ariel Yarnitsky, founders of Mirabilis and ICQ
Nat Goldhaber
Andy Hertzfeld, programmer on Mac OS
Philippe Kahn, founder of Borland [4]
Larry Kaplan, co-founder of Activision
Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Software, co-founder of EFF
Raymond Kurzweil, artificial intelligence software
Phil Katz, creator of PKZip
Leslie Lamport, initial developer of LaTeX
Sandra Lerner, co-founder of Cisco Systems
Max Levchin, founder of PayPal
Elias Levy (aka Aleph One), long-time moderator of Bugtraq
Michael Moritz, venture capitalist with Sequoia Capital
Ken Novack
Larry Page, co-founder of Google (Jewish mother) [5]
Jef Raskin, interface designer for Apple Macintosh
Seymour I. Rubinstein, creator of WordStar
Jonathan Sachs, chief programmer on Lotus Software
Joshua Schachter, creator of del.icio.us
Jonathan I. Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems
Dmitry Shapiro
Jeff Skoll, billionaire co-founder and first president of eBay
Richard Stallman, programmer of Emacs, founder of GNU
Larry Tesler, creator of Gypsy
Dave Winer, content management, XML-RPC
Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook
[edit] Media and Entertainment
George Abrams, corporate director at Viacom
J. J. Abrams
Herb Abramson, record company executive and producer
Julius Ochs Adler
Lou Adler
Maurice Adler
Irwin Allen
Herb Alpert
Samuel Z. Arkoff
Letty Aronson
David Begelman
David Belasco
Lawrence Bender
Rick Berman
William Morris Bioff, labor leader in the movie production business from the 1920s through the 1940s
Steven Bochco
Steve Bornstein
Jordan Bratman
James L. Brooks, TV producer
Jerry Bruckheimer
Bruce Cohen
Lyor Cohen
Harry Cohn & Jack Cohn, co-founders of Columbia Pictures
Heinrich Conried
Philippe Dauman, president and CEO of Viacom
Clive Davis
Nicolas de Gunzburg
Barry Diller, creator Fox Broadcasting Company
Michael Eisner, former head of The Walt Disney Company
Ari Emanuel
Cy Feuer
William Fox, Joseph Schenk, co-founders of 20th Century Fox
Fred W. Friendly, former president of CBS
Frohman brothers
Don Garber
David Geffen, co-founder of Dreamworks SKG and founder of Geffen Records
Michael Gelman
Joel Gertner
Leonard Goldberg
Leonard Goldenson, founder of ABC
Akiva Goldsman
Glazer family
Dan Glickman, chief lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America
William Goetz
Mark Goodson
Bill Graham
Brian Grazer
Alan Greenberg, corporate director at Viacom
Oscar Hammerstein I
Don Hewitt
Paul Heyman
Sam Jaffe
Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio
Jeffrey Katzenberg (1950 – ) film producer, director and co-founder of DreamWorks SKG[1]
Sam Katzman
Jared Kushner, owner of the New York Observer (son of Charles Kushner)
Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Studios
Sherry Lansing, former head of Paramount Pictures
Norman Lear
Ross Levinsohn
Marv Levy
Val Lewton
Marcus Loew, Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, co-founders of MGM
Siegmund Lubin
David Merrick
Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation
Guy Oseary
Michael Ovitz
William S. Paley, founder of CBS
Joseph Papp
Lou Pearlman
Hal Prince
Shari Redstone
Sumner Redstone, head of Viacom and on the board of directors at CBS
Ralph Roberts, Daniel Aaron, Julian Brodsky, founders of Comcast
Billy Rose
Steve Ross
Joe Roth
Rick Rubin
Samuel M. Rubin
Haim Saban, former owner of the Family Channel (purchased by Disney) and the Kirch German Media empire
David Sarnoff, founder of RCA
Dorothy Schiff
Mortimer L. Schiff
B.P. Schulberg
Morris Schwartz
Sherwood Schwartz
William Selig
David O. Selznick and other members of the Selznick family
Irene Mayer Selznick
Lewis J. Selznick
Neal Shapiro, former president of NBC News
Allan Sherman
Shubert family
Robert F.X. Sillerman, billionaire CEO and chairman of CKX, Inc.
Joel Silver
Harry Sloan, Chairman of MGM
Phil Spector
Aaron Spelling
Sam Spiegel
Steven Spielberg, director, founder of Dreamworks SKG
Dawn Steel
Jules C. Stein, founder of MCA
Howard Stern, media mogul
Brandon Tartikoff
Irving Thalberg
Harry, Albert, Sam & Jack Warner, founders of Warner Brothers
Casey Wasserman
Lew Wasserman
Bob Weinstein & Harvey Weinstein, founders of Miramax
David Westin
Jeff Zucker, Chief Executive Officer of the NBC Universal Television Group
Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount Pictures
[edit] Publishing
Moses Annenberg
Walter Annenberg, publisher & philanthropist
Avi Arad, CEO of Marvel Comics
Peter Bart
Robert L. Bernstein
Adam Bly, founder and CEO of Seed Media Group, Seed Magazine
Bennett Cerf, publisher and co-founder of Random House
L. Gordon Crovitz, publisher of The Wall Street Journal
Paul Fishbein, owner of AVN magazine, the standard trade magazine of the pornography industry in the U.S.
Jane Friedman
Bonnie Fuller, editor and autobiographer
Al Goldstein founder of Screw magazine
Martin Goodman
Katharine Graham
Alfred & Blanche Knopf, founders of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Paul Levitz, President of DC Comics
Samuel Irving Newhouse, founder of Advance Publications
Samuel Irving Newhouse, Jr., CEO of Advance Publications and chairman of Condé Nast Publications
Adolph Ochs, former head of the New York Times
Joseph Pulitzer, publisher (Jewish father)
Barney Rossett, founder of Grove Press (Jewish father)
David Schneiderman, owner of The Village Voice
Richard L. Simon & Max Schuster, founders of Simon and Schuster
Roger W. Straus, Jr., co-founder of Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times
Mortimer Zuckerman, billionaire owner of New York Daily News and US News and World Report
[edit] Advertising
Edward Bernays, father of public relations
Bill Bernbach, advertising pioneer
Evan Montvel Cohen, owner of several advertising agencies, first chairman and co-founder of Air America Radio
Jay Chiat, advertiser
Ari Emanuel
Sidney Frank
Stan Freberg, advertiser & radio personality
Joe Gould
Albert Lasker, advertising pioneer, founder of the Lasker Award
Rochelle Lazarus, chair and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, one of the world’s largest advertising agencies
Ron Popeil, inventor & father of infomercials
Daniel Snyder, founder and owner of Snyder Communications
[edit] American sports: owners, commissioners, managers, presidents, etc.
Leslie Alexander, U.S., owner of Houston Rockets and Houston Comets
Micky Arison, U.S., owner of the Miami Heat
Red Auerbach, U.S., coach and GM of the Boston Celtics
Gary Bettman, U.S., National Hockey League Commissioner
Arthur Blank, U.S., owner of the Atlanta Falcons (since 2002); owner of the Arena Football League franchise the Georgia Force
Mark Cuban, U.S., owner of Dallas Mavericks
William Davidson, U.S., Chairman of Palace Sports and Entertainment, principal owner of the Detroit Pistons of the NBA, the Detroit Shock of the WNBA, and the Tampa Bay Lightning of the NHL
Al Davis, U.S., owner of the Oakland Raiders
Steve Ellman, U.S., owner of the Phoenix Coyotes
Theo Epstein, U.S., General Manager of the Boston Red Sox
Don Garber, U.S., Major League Soccer Commissioner
Dan Gilbert, U.S., owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers
Avram Glazer, U.S., joint Chairman of the Manchester United board
Joel Glazer, U.S., Chairman of Manchester United
Malcolm Glazer, U.S., owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, majority owner of Manchester United
Eddie Gottlieb, U.S. basketball coach, owner Philadelphia Warriors, NBA founder
Ludwig Guttmann, U.S., founder of the Paralympics [6]
Raanan Katz, joint U.S./Israeli citizen, part owner of the Miami Heat
Herb Kohl, U.S., owner of the Milwaukee Bucks
Bob Kraft, U.S., owner of the New England Patriots and New England Revolution
Jerry Krause, U.S., former General Manager of the Chicago Bulls
Lerner family, U.S., owners of the Washington Nationals
Randy Lerner, U.S., owner of the Cleveland Browns, owner of Aston Villa [7]
Jamie McCourt, U.S., owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, only current female owner in major league baseball (Jewish father, and therefore not considered Jewish under orthodox Jewish law)
Art Modell, U.S., former owner of the Baltimore Ravens
Gabe Paul, U.S., long-time President & General Manager of the Cleveland Indians
Abe Pollin, U.S, owner of the Washington Wizards, former owner of the NHL’s Washington Capitals and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics
Jerry Reinsdorf, U.S., owner of the Chicago Bulls, owner of the Chicago White Sox
Henry Samueli, U.S. owner of the Anaheim Ducks, founder of Broadcom Corporation
Abe Saperstein, U.S. founder & owner of Harlem Globetrotters
Howard Schultz, U.S. owner of Seattle Supersonics. Founder of Starbucks
Bud Selig, U.S., Major League Baseball Commissioner
Mark Shapiro, U.S., General Manager of the Cleveland Indians
Ed Snider, U.S., owner of the Philadelphia Flyers
Daniel Snyder, U.S., owner of Washington Redskins
David Stern, U.S., National Basketball Association Commissioner
Zygi Wilf, U.S., principal owner of the Minnesota Vikings[2]
Fred Wilpon, U.S., owner of the New York Mets
Lewis Wolff, U.S., owner of the Oakland Athletics
[edit] Other and Miscellany
Bradley Abelow, State Treasurer of the U.S. State of New Jersey, ex-executive with Goldman Sachs
Polly Adler
Ted Arison, founder of Carnival Cruise Lines (U.S. and Israel)
Bob Arum
Irving Azoff
Carl Berg
David Berman, one of the pioneers of gambling in Las Vegas, Nevada
Otto Berman
Abe Bernstein, casino magnate
Charles Birger, alcohol smuggler during Prohibition
Rudy Boschwitz, founder and chairman of a plywood and home improvement retailer, Plywood Minnesota (which later became Home Valu Interiors)
E. H. Bronner
Louis Buchalter, garment industry figure
Kid Cann
Dov Charney
Alex Chiu, inventor of “immortality ring” (by religion only), Jewish follower
Mickey Cohen
Moe Dalitz
Monk Eastman
Maxie Eisen
Andrew Fastow, former CFO of Enron
Lea Fastow
Benjamin Fein
Heidi Fleiss, prostitution entrepreneur
Drew Friedman, Founder/CEO of hip-hop label Duck Down Records
George Friedman
Joe Gold, founder of Gold’s Gym and World Gym
Leslie Gonda
Waxey Gordon
Pincus Green
Gus Greenbaum
Rebecca Gratz
Gerald Grinstein, CEO of Delta Airlines
Lizzie Grubman
Jack J. Grynberg, major international oil and gas magnate
Jake Guzik
Armand Hammer, former CEO of Occidental Petroleum
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy
Martin Indyk
Nathan Kaplan
Abe Landau
Meyer Lansky
Charles Albert Levine
Michael E. Levine
Stanley Levison
Leonard Lewisohn
William Lipshitz
Alfred E. Mann
Jacob Orgen
Bruce Pasternack, President/CEO Special Olympics, Author The Centerless Corporation and Results
Nelson Peltz
Pritzker family, 11 billionaires in the family including:
Abram Nicholas Pritzker
Jay Pritzker
Linda Pritzker
Robert Pritzker
Thomas Pritzker
Steve J. Rosen
Frank Rosenthal
Joseph Rosenzweig
William M. Roth
Arnold Rothstein
Harry Sagansky
Dutch Schultz
Jacob Shapiro
Robert J. Shapiro
Eugene Shvidler
Bugsy Siegel
Charles Solomon
Johnny Spanish
Joseph Stacher
Reuben Sturman, highly successful pornographer and businessman
Caspar Weinberger, ex-vice president and general counsel of the Bechtel Corporation and former Secretary of Defense
Jack Zuta
Abner Zwillman
David Geffen
Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft (Jewish mother), US Citizen
Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P.
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google Jewish, US Citizen
Eli Broad of KB home and founder of SunAmerica
Michael Dell, founder of Dell, Inc.
Lawrence Ellison, founder of Oracle Corporation (Jewish mother, Jewish adoptive parents), US Citizen
Carl Icahn, investor and director of many companies
Philippe Kahn, founder of Borland [8]
Larry Page, co-founder of Google (Jewish mother), US Citizen
Ronald Perelman, businessman and investor
Sumner Redstone of Viacom
George Soros, speculator and investor
Mark, thanks for the direct question–I wish I could give as direct an answer. In 2003, I organized and agitated against the war in Iraq. I also opposed the intervention in Afghanistan. Am I proud of either and do I still hold those positions? Well, now I know very some key players in the reconstruction efforts of Afghanistan quite well and I can say almost without a doubt that my opposition to that action was misguided. There is a loud, concentrated voice from Afghanistan, 'Americans are jerks only when they help less than they say they will, not more.' As for Iraq, do I now support the war? As I said, I much prefer civil society movements to military intervention. In the case of Iraq, the simple remark/question 'What civil society?' says it all. In Iran, I can be quite comfortable saying 'The US has meddled enough (along with Russia and Europe), the Iranians should be left in peace to change their own society' because not only is it true, but it can be done. In Iraq, I don't believe such a thing was possible and if anybody had a responsibility to the Iraqi people, the United States did. My cousin spent a full tour of duty there and, with his stories, and with most of these arguments, I can only say that undoubtedly good and bad has come from this war. I support the good things and condemn the bad–I can't change that it happened or change how it happened. But if I say I support the war, I'll be accused of not caring about things like Abu Ghraib. If I say I oppose it, then I say, in effect, "I support the continuance of a fascist regime." Clearly Phase IV was poorly planned, and clearly Rumsfeld's corporate handling of the invasion has wrought a great deal of horror and needless death. The conscious decision of theocratic assholes to incite a sectarian war, however, is their fault, not that of the U.S. This is a Catch 22 for me of stifling proportion: if I say I don't support the war as its been waged, I not only make the naive assumption that war can be nice and neat and one side can come out of it not having committed atrocities, but I also revoke my solidarity with liberal brothers and sisters in Iraq who said in effect, 'we'd prefer it wasn't the U.S., but we'll take what we can get.' If I say I support the war, people will say I support atrocity, state violence, and so on. So I can only say this: I support the premise of the war, the justification for it, insofar as that had to do with the long overdue release of the Iraqi people from dictatorship. I don't support its having been carried out so badly. It was the right thing to do and the wrong way to have done it. Whether the good will outweigh the bad, I don't think any of us is prepared to say. Does this make me a fence-sitter? I hope not. In a war against Ba'thists and jihadists, I will say who I hope will prevail–and I can say so with a fairly extensive knowledge of the crimes of U.S. colonialism and hegemony. I hope the U.S.contributes to the triumph over radicalism. Does this make me neocon or 'pro-war?' Who on earth, other than those who say they love death more than we love life is pro-war? As for Persianist and Afghanist vs. anti-nationalism, generally a Persianist is not one who subscribes to or adores the sundry nationalist ideologies of Persia, but one who devotes attention, scholarship and who most likey has a deep affinity for Persian culture. One may be fascinated by the historical debate over Cyrus' humanitarianism without taking a stake in the nationalist argument as to whether Cyrus was a tyrant or a national hero. Similarly for Afghanistan, nationalism is a weak force while culture and history are not–to my knowledge, it isn't inappropriate to call a person who appreciates Afghan culture or studies its history an Afghanist, nor do those things necesitate that person being for or against Afghan nationalism. However, an Afghanist might still take a strong intellectual interest in the attempts at manufacturing nationalism. It also should be said that, while I may despise most forms of nationalism, I don't deny its role in statehood, so for instance, I'm not going to prize anti-nationalism over, say Kurdish or Palestinian statehood. Also, certain forms of civic nationalism, say like the types Habermas describes, I dislike less than others.
Josh, I thought I was making a light-hearted joke. I didn’t intend to hurt anyone. I suspected that you were confident enough in your appearance and beliefs to not be wounded by such a slight remark. I’ll accept your history of Goth, largely because I know little to nothing about it.
As for being ‘anti-fascism’? Well, who isn’t? It doesn’t seem to me to be saying much of anything at all. Nor does describing oneself as a ‘humanist’ amount to much. And then while you say you’re ‘anti-nationlist’ you also say you’re an ‘Afghanist’ and a ‘Persianist’? Somehow, this doesn’t reconcile with me, in part because I’m not sure what the hell those latter two terms are supposed to mean.
More directly: do you support the war in Iraq, as it has been conducted? Not that this is the only question to ask, but I’m just curious.
Interestingly enough, Mark, the goth subculture is perhaps the one most populated by freaky children of conservative political opinion. I know–you'd think otherwise right? Considering how on the surface they all look so wacked out. Not so–when many punk and postpunk bands (The Clash, Gang of Four) nearly required one to be a radical leftist, the goth scene offered something that was for the most part, removed from politics–something that romanced the past (in my opinion, far too much). Like a great many things you open your mouth about, you should investigate first. Take for instance, my "neoconservatism." As with the origin of the word, you've mainly thrown it at me as a slag. You betray your confused logic though, because how could it bother me if I was indeed a neoconservative? The word 'neocon' in this scenario is a slag from one person of liberal opinion to another. And yes, being called a neocon does annoy me (the same way being called Ted or Mark or Alan would annoy me). As the movement has come together some of the general points are–to my knowledge–the belief in beefy military power, renewed nationalism, and a distaste for the cultural revolution of the 1960's and 70's. Since, dahhling, I concentrate most of my energy on civil society movements not statist military solutions, since I despise nationalism and since I'm quite a fan of the advances made in that cultural revolution, I don't mix well with proper neocons. Humanist, anti-nationalist, anti-fascist, philo-Islamic, Afghanist and Persianist. These things define me far better than 'neocon' and anybody who knows anything about me knows this (even goth, if you want–I won't deny it, though I fall more to the Scott Walker side and less to the NIN side). But you'd never call me derisively any of those things–why would it irk somebody to be told what they are? For this (hopefully) brief moment in history however, some of us are stuck with a wierd dilemma–that anti-fascism as a serious notion is embraced most fervently by those of neoconservative persuasion. What to do? Some have abandoned anti-fascism or tried underhanded semantic sleights of hand to confuse the discourse and have us believe the word fascism has no currency these days and therefore fighting it doesn't either. All that to avoid getting called a neocon. I want nothing to do with that, plain and simple so call me what you wish. But back to goth. It so happens that one of my favorite records is 'Vision Thing' by the Sisters of Mercy, a fiercely political record that inflicts a glorious kind of cruelty on the George Bush Sr. administration. It was James Baker and Brent Scowcroft who were Bush Sr. National Security Advisor and Secretary of State when H.W. encouraged an infitada against Hussein in 1991, and then stood by while Hussein's helicopter gunships mowed down the resistance in the hundreds of thousands. Now today people on the left look to James Baker for council on foreign affairs and say the exact things about Iraq as Scowcroft. Where does that leave me? Neocon, you say. I'll call you Betty, Mark. As for 'The Lost Boys' comment, was that supposed to hurt? I love that movie. Though being on the left these days sort of feels like being in Santa Carla. Cue Echo & the Bunnymen…
Come, come, Peter. You didn’t address my main point about how all those invocations to ‘keep quiet because that betrays knowledge’ are just tools created by the strong to maintain order and control.
My belief is that all religion is nonsense, sorry. I’ll let Hitchens and Dawkins and others make the case, though. I have my criticisms with Hitchens, by the way, but we’re getting off the topic that you started: namely, that keeping silent is the best way to go. A fairly ironic remark considering it was made in the comments section of an online magazine.
You're with Hitchen? You say it like you guys play badminton twice a week….Do you think he actually cares a lick what you think? Why don't you try thinking for yourself instead of idolozing a drunken windbag? An intelligent, well-read one,yes, but a windbag nonetheless.
“I was brought up all my life amongst the Sages and I have found nothing so good as silence, and it is not the study of law that is of fundamental import but the practice thereof, and whosever is profuse of words occasions sin.”
Sounds to me more like a tool used to encourage obedience. I’m with Hitchens on the notion that all religion is nonsense. I would speculate that all of these Godly assertions about how ‘wise men keep quiet’ are inventions cooked up by the powers that be in order to maintain obedience and order. “Well, if we can convince them that they’re actually more intelligent if they don’t complain, then we’ll be onto something…”
Jeez, I stumbled upon this site by mistake, and it feels like I’m entering neo-con central. I love how Jews cry anti-semitism when people equate neo-cons with Jews, but then I come across these Jewish neo-cons who support the Iraq war and defend war-criminals like Wolfowitz. Surreal, indeed.
Well, perhaps in an online community we should be busily opining away as though the fate of mankind depended on our every thought, but still, here's some Judaic support for Peter's comment. From Pirkei Avot, Mishnah 17:
"I was brought up all my life amongst the Sages and I have found nothing so good as silence, and it is not the study of law that is of fundamental import but the practice thereof, and whosever is profuse of words occasions sin."
It reads to me like Simon (the speaker) was just sick sick sick of listening to his father drone on endlessly, but hey.
I suppose I should’ve written, “…no informed person would ever speak.”
However, I can’t help but state the obvious:
“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak, do not know.”
According to that logic, no intelligent person would ever speak. Do I really need to go on?
If you care to comment more specifically on my ignorance, I’m all eyes and ears. Shouldn’t be so hard for you, right, since it’s so bloody transparent? Please enlighten me, Peter, but you might want to refrain from quoting any more of that “wisdom” you got stored up.
Mark G–
I woke up last night to an eerie whistling and Josh Strawn was floating outside my window. True story.
How rad – a Goth neoconservate. So Josh, are you, like, an actual vampire? Seriously dude, you look like one of those kids from The Lost Boys.
Very interesting post, Anon. That's what I was trying to get at earlier: that the willingness of Bank personnel to involve themselves in this entire manufactured soap-opera-cum-turf-war evinces nothing so much as the complete lack of seriousness with which they lollygag after the supposed goals of the organization. Depressing.
I've heard some positive things over the years about programs financed by the Bank. But they certainly look pathetic and unserious right now.
Out there in the world of development-agency-watching NGOs, our pet name for the big house on H street is the “Borld Wank”.
Where o where does this amazing idea come from that Dr W’s. travails are standing in the way of the Wank’s ongoing brilliant successes in poverty alleviation?
What’s happening with the hacks at the Wank having their long knives out now for Dr Wolfowitz —whose career-wise professional probity is absolutely unquestionable— is that the issue is not “corruption” inside the Bank in the gross, Swiss-numbered-account sense; but rather the lack of seriousness that characterizes Wank projects operationally, certainly in my own first-hand experience.
The Wank’s time-servers want only to check off the requisite number of conditionalities (i.e., “we’ll give/loan you the money if –and only if– you set aside the ooky-ooky bird habitat”, to which the borrowers always agree, oh yes oh yes oh yes: even if zero successful environmental or equity conditionalities for any official development assistance projects, say, in the Lao PDR, could actually be identified a year or two or three down the pike); or even more cynically, just to move the money.
In the case of the Greater Mekong Sub-basin, where I mostly work(ed), we’re probably talking about nearly a $billion (in the aggregate, since the late 1970s), out of which hardly any tangible and “sustainable” results have irrefutably flowed. Again, this is not for big infrastructure shemes like dams and pipelines, this is just for all the high-minded stuff demanded by the bien pensants and the NGOs: civil society, governance, biodiversity and cultural conservation, gender equity, blah blah blah.
But who knows, since virtually none of the hundreds or thousands of individual projects have ever been stringently reviewed, once the near-term implementation pipeline ran dry?
Have to wait until your world tour gets to NZ Joshy. I only play live.
Got a commentator on my blog that says Mr Weiss’s nickname was “Squeaky”
I think that sort of silly childish name-calling is beneath us all however.
Put something out then and let us bask in your genius, hedgehog. Or shall we have a proper 'Crossroads' stand-off, Ralph Macchio and Steve Vai style, in an axe duel for the soul of the left?! Polish those Whitesnake riffs and lets get cracking–I'll crane kick you in the face with sweet licks!!   Â
“My prediction: a post on Hitchenswatch soon proclaiming that it wasn’t Wolfowitz, but his lover who pulled the strings–and the Iraq War is really a pillow talk conspiracy by a rogue secular Muslim feminist who is using neocon Jews to manipulate a Methodist Republican into toppling Ba’thism and radical Islamism so that women in Iraq and Afghanistan can rock and roll”
Given that prediction I’d avoid putting any bets on Josh old bean.
“Sonic, you’re a turd and, I fear, maybe even slightly illiterate”
Well I’m not about to comment on that, however I can both play the guitar and sing better that you Joshy.
(F*ck yea)
xxx
S
Sonic hangs out with kindergarteners–of course! Now the sophistication level of his arguments makes sense! Best not to tax the frontal lobes on this fella. Skip straight to the diaper-soiling brain stem, and proceed with the name calling. Sonic, you're a turd and, I fear, maybe even slightly illiterate. Only a severe reading disability could lead one to misunderstand what's so clearly spelled out in the correspondence between the involved parties. I'm curious now, though–Wolfowitz The Muslim Killer is now Wolfowitz The Muslim Lover. What sort of contortion will follow? My prediction: a post on Hitchenswatch soon proclaiming that it wasn't Wolfowitz, but his lover who pulled the strings–and the Iraq War is really a pillow talk conspiracy by a rogue secular Muslim feminist who is using neocon Jews to manipulate a Methodist Republican into toppling Ba'thism and radical Islamism so that women in Iraq and Afghanistan can rock and roll. It's so very rare that there's a conspiracy theory that I actually hope IS true…9/11 could have been prevented, the Truthers will say, if only Shaha Riza weren't so foxy and all-fired up about women's rights!! The corrollary will then be that, since Wolfowitz respected his lover's opinion so much as to influence world policy at her behest, that it is now wrong to respect women. Whatever Wolfowitz does is by definition evil, right guys? And swathes of leftists everywhere will proclaim that respect for women is synonomous with U.S. hegemony!!!Â
But I ignored for the sake of my own rhetorical purposes.
“What’s clear is that this whole charade hasn’t a bit to do with the interests of the impoverished peoples of the developing world.”
Not at all clear to me.
Do you know the people in the World Bank who are opposed to Wolfowitz? Do you seriously mean to suggest that they’re all just lying when they say Wolf intereferes with their anti-poverty measures? That they’re all living in fantasy land? You write as if you know about things that you simply cannot possibly know.
“who’d already blown previous presidents out of the water in his willingness to lay out serious cash for international aid programs.”
This is just an empty statement, unless you care to back it up. Can you prove it? Be specific, too. Where did the aid go? What exactly was it used for?
“In any case, liberal/conservative is a more or less useless framework from which to understand differences in approach to development work.”
Let’s not even go here. Really. As someone who has actually done development work, and who knows many that do, please, let’s just let this one go…
Mark, thank you again for your insights. Wolfowitz's appointment was humorous because it was so clear that Bank staff would resist working with him, the Straussian Dark Lord of the neocon cabal. But these fantasies are a product of activist culture generally, and of no relevance to the work of the bank or the needs of aid recipients. Had they actually been focused on the important goals of the institution for which they are employed, they would have been delighted to work with Wolfowitz, who had the ear of a president who'd already blown previous presidents out of the water in his willingness to lay out serious cash for international aid programs.
In any case, liberal/conservative is a more or less useless framework from which to understand differences in approach to development work. What's clear is that this whole charade hasn't a bit to do with the interests of the impoverished peoples of the developing world. The Bank staff clearly has more pressing concerns, turf wars to fight, vanities to service, and so on.
Thanks again for your many contributions to the thread.
You’re trying to make us *feel bad* for Paul Wolfowitz?? I’m sure his team of lawyers can handle the reading.
Bob Bennett. I know he’s Bill’s bro, but wasn’t he also one of Bubba’s defenders?
The fact is, Wolf may or not have violated ethics, but the more important point is that his conservative politics are interfering with the Bank’s anti-poverty proposals. And he never should’ve been imposed on the Bank in the first place. To me, an even more important point is this:
“Some argue that the convention of reserving the leadership posts at the World Bank and the IMF for the United States and Europe is outdated, asserting that now is an ideal time to scrap it in favor of a selection based on merit.”
Yes, it is. Selecting based on merit? Who would’ve ever thought of that…
From today's WaPo:Â
"The committee gave Wolfowitz a copy of its report accompanied by transcripts and other documents exceeding 600 pages late Sunday, telling him he had until the end of yesterday to submit a written response, Bennett said."
It was originally 700 pages, but they wanted to make sure he had enough time to fashion his reply.Â
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
Except for you there, Joey. You apparently see all. Thanks for all of the profound visionary insights you’ve made on this thread.
But seriously, I just went back and tried to find your weightiest contribution and this is what I came up with:
“The people who need defense are those who most need an effective World Bank. If members of the organization are spending their energy and time trying to whack Western political opponents rather than focusing on the problems of the developing word, then yes, this needs to be written about.”
I think the response here is that the World Bank felt as though Wolfie’s conservative politics were interfering with their ability to effectively deal with the problems of the developing world. Which is why I quote that snippet from the NYT above: “European sentiment is against Mr. Wolfowitz and in favor of more aid for poor countries.”
So the attempt to ‘whack western political opponents’ is an attempt to counter the initial “almost laughable” appointment that was imposed on them, but also an attempt to deal more effectively with the problems of the developing world. Get it?
Anon, you'll be pleased to know that synthetic leather is now of equal quality to stripped/tanned cattle flesh. You can hardly tell the difference, except that former is less expensive.Â
As for Wolfie, well sure, yeah. But as a wise man once said, "To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." I hope this article helped.
Just wanted to offer some solidarity to Joey on the pleather issue–its hard enough to have to wear em without being made fun of, I know. Anyway, you guys are right about the Wolfie witch hunt, who can’t see that?
As far as I know, Weiss was hanging out with him last week.
Well, thank you Mr. Anonymous Asshole for setting us all straight. I don’t know where any of us would’ve been without your high-minded conclusion on today’s comments.
I gave my critique of the piece in question, which you might’ve noticed had you bothered to read all of the comments. I can’t do as much as scroll your mouse back up for you, but I can at least tell you that it’s there.
“I have worked with him for more than a decade and I can assure you he’s a pompous windbag and an intellectual bully who bends every situation to fit his own need for self-promotion.”
Okay, who are you? And why would you continue working for a man who you believed was a pompous windbag, lying, sonofabitch?
And to think, some people say that bloggers are nothing more than whiney, self-absorbed wankers who can’t see the forest for the trees. This heated exchange certainly lends no credence to that claim, does it?
Come on guys, these comments are literally of pertinence ONLY to the two people calling each other names. Go play a round of Dungeons and Dragons, and get your petty differences (and name calling) out that way.
And bringing up Hitchens–Christ you talk about him as if you meet him at Odeon for drinks twice a month. I have worked with him for more than a decade and I can assure you he’s a pompous windbag and an intellectual bully who bends every situation to fit his own need for self-promotion.
The writer of the essay at hand, at least, was attempting to make a point, albeit one that perhaps didn’t need to be made (though he obviously felt it did). Grant him the right to say his piece. The rest of you just sound like jealous schoolgirls who didn’t get asked to the cheerleader try out. Grow up. Add a comment if it’s substantive, but don’t reduce this place to a middle school hallway during lunch break.
Also: It’s not “clever” to notice a spelling error. It’s a simple act of observation. If you’re going to post comments, read what you’ve written and clean it up before you hit send, as it were.
Oh I made a spelling mistake! well that is my whole argument up in flames then. How clever of you to notice Michael.
Who knows, if you give up your laughable attempts at politics you could always get a job as a proof reader!
"Goodness I've had better discussions at the children's kindergarden"
Well, I knew we'd get to the bottom of your identity sooner or later. Next time, though, ask 'em to teach you to spell.
Sorry Joey, afraid not.
Sonic, seeing as you're a kiwi, do you know Denis Dutton?
Goodness I’ve had better discussions at the children’s kindergarden.
But I see we have moved beyond “you are an unemployed teenager” to plan B, “divide and rule” viz.
“you’re chums with MG He wrote me a note last March asking me to respond to something one of your co-bloggers posted, adding that it might be worthwhile if only because, unlike your drooling idiocies, this new guy’s stuff actually had merit”
If he means Greywolf he has a good point, the guy is an excellent poster, far better than little old me, well done to Mark for noticing!
I’ve been told that New York is the home of some of the worlds smartest, hippest and most sophisticated, you wouldn’t know a blog where I could read some stuff like that do you?
I know the American remake of The Office worked out well, your attempt to do a similar trick with Harry’s place is not.
Sonic, you so unemployed your blog pays you time-and-a-half! Your blog's so weak it wouldn't get a visit if it requested a copy of Watchtower. Damn.
What can I do to insinuate myself into this conversation?Â
Sorry, sorry, okay, you're gainfully employed and a big boy to boot.
Ever try hanging your hat on an ad hominem? Rather difficult, I should imagine.
By the way, I'm glad to see you're chums with MG. He wrote me a note last March asking me to respond to something one of your co-bloggers posted, adding that it might be worthwhile if only because, unlike your drooling idiocies, this new guy's stuff actually had merit. Would you like me to send you the email?
xoxox
I see you are one of those sad people who inhabit the internet who, without an ad hominem to hang their hat on, is lost for an argument.
As we can see above with Mark G.
Perhaps your writing career might be rather more succesful of you concentrated on the actual points people are making rather than try to resort to pointless name calling.
Whats next, a “Your mamas so fat” joke?
Still I do hear that you rarely mess up the coffee order at Slate these days, so not all is lost!
x
Hugs
S
Who's being witty? I place you at around 16 or 17, tops. Don't tell me you've actually got a job given how much time you spend stalking the comments threads of HP, etc., not to mention tending your own admirable shrine to the Hitch.Â
I am curious, though, given your acute concern for vice and dishonesty, don't you think it's even a little cowardly to stake an opinion with nothing tying you to it? What are you hiding, Eric/Stuart/Angus? I promise I won't tell anyone.
Exactly, 300 hits a day, who would bother with putting advertising on something that small eh?
Oh and “your mum” joke, to think witty and unique stuff like that only gets you 700 hits a day, it’s a crazy world!
You want a name, Eric ok? I could add Stuart and Angus if you prefer.
Not a less fortunate blogger, either. You get around 300 hits a day. I get about 700 or so. Also a handful of emails from your readers who worry that your mum will one day pull the plug on your internet access and end the best compendium of Hitchens articles on the web.
By the way, any chance you'll ever, you know, offer a name to go along with the biting wit? Â
I did put in a link to Snarksmith mate, always happy to help out the less fortunate in the blogging community.
Adverts on the blog though, a little bit mercenary don’t you think?
Thanks, Sonic. The last time you did that, you even boosted my traffic. Although might you also include a link to Snarksmith while you're at it? I've got ad revenue coming in now, bills to pay, etc.
Keep up the great work!
Say hi to Grueter for me, under whatever gamer cognomen he's adopted as your special tip-feeder.
I’ll put a little post up at your favourite blog, I always like you to know that I still care.
Feel free to turn your disdainometer up to 11
http://christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com/2007/05/his-masters-voice.html
Hugs
S
Xoxo.
You really are a faithfull little puppy dog to Mr Hitchens.
It’s rather cute.
xxx
Sonic
“A bank committee formally transmitted its findings that he was guilty of a conflict of interest in arranging for a pay raise and promotion in 2005 to Shaha Ali Riza, his companion,” wrote Steven Weisman late on Monday afternoon.
The panel’s finding have not been made public, and Weisman added that “It was not clear whether the committee, consisting of 7 of the bank’s 24 board members, would remove Mr. Wolfowitz from his post or, more likely, express a loss of confidence in his leadership in a manner that might persuade him to resign.”
Oh, Mikey. What’s nice about the Internet is that if you tell someone to ‘buzz off’ the joke is on you. I should’ve thought you would know this by now, but then I’m reminded of your Blog, and how you saw it fit to suppress anyone who disagreed with your stubbornly narrow views. I guess that’s why nobody even tries to comment on your site anymore. That combined with the fact that practically every post is an extended soliloquy – a series of unintentionally laughable and aburdly pompous rants that only pretend to engage an actual audience.
What lies behind my defense of Ames is a defense of substantive issues that profoundly affect American society. I’ve laid out those arguments on this website and you’ve chosen to not reply. What lies behind your defense of Wolfowitz? His right to give a $200,000 raise to his girlfriend?
Just because I don’t particularly care to argue with you on the merits of the Wolfowitz case doesn’t mean that I haven’t been paying attention. The internal review was conducted, and the committee determined that he committed ethics violations. That is, in my opinion, their prerogative.
NYT: “That mood has changed, many European officials say. As expressed in editorials, political commentaries and even blogs, European sentiment is against Mr. Wolfowitz and in favor of more aid for poor countries.”
What’s pathetic is that you defend Wolfowitz without receiving those perks. You just do it because you’re a born suck-up.
By the way, you look like a puppetoon character in that photo. You should consider replacing it…
And then I really must let you go. It's been real and all.
The number one news item of the day — not to mention a chorus of international opinion-makers — portrays a man as a corrupt and venal bureaucrat when in fact he's not. Why the hell not write about this? And what does Wolfowitz's being able to defend himself have fuck-all to do with it? I'm sure your favorite sociologist Mark Ames can argue his own case, yet that didn't stop you from swooping to his defense in your prior contribution to this site's comments section, did it?Â
As for self-awareness, I find this beyond sad coming from someone who admits to not knowing his ass from his elbow about a lead story, yet then declares he's only interested in with what gets me out of bed in the morning to comment on it. Is this what now passes for renegade journalism in the dank corners of your mind? I'll make easy on you: the State Department, the Weekly Standard, Dick Cheney's Guatemalan housekeeper and internet service provider of Little Green Footballs all bought me a Bentley in exchange for drafting this post.Â
You've become pathetic and boring, Mark, and now you've truly wasted enough of my time. Buzz off. Go update your self-composed Wikipedia entry.
I believe the member countries have voted, and they want Wolfowitz out. But ‘equal voting rights’ is precisely what the US does NOT want. The US government believes it should have the power to make arbitrary appointments, that it should much more power than other member countries. That’s the way it behaves, anyway.
For me, on this issue, it’s about motive, not logic. I don’t care enough about the case to debate you on the logical points of whether or not what Wolfowitz has done amounts to corruption or not. I’m sure there are already plenty of others making that case.
What I don’t get is why you would feel the need to defend the guy at all? What is the point? Can he not defend himself? Is he calling for people to come to his defense? Isn’t he as good as dead now anyway, as far as the Bank is concerned?
Hitch’s defense was already a rather obvious attempt to defend a fellow pro-war ideologue. So when I saw that you were now doing the same rather obvious thing, I just thought it was too much. It’s an act that is totally lacking in self-awareness.
Well yeah, I suspect that the World Bank will continue to make its own staffing decisions, but since you're asking how they ought to make these decisions, which is another question entirely, I don't think I'm out of place in admitting that I'd prefer that member countries of the Bank and contributors to the Daily Shvitz be given equal voting rights in the operations of the Bank. If the member countries are "resorting to pretenses when provided with no other alternative," I don't see what harm could come new blood, even if that means Weiss, who wakes each morning thinking up new ways to lick the boots of power.
Main point here is that even if the move to oust Wolfowitz is essentially just ‘political’ then it’s still justified because it’s only being done as a way to cancel what was initially a ‘political’ appointment.
If Paul were as brilliant as we’re led to believe, he would’ve been more careful not to give the Bank a reason to get rid of him.
Not sure I follow the logic here. But then, I've not followed anything you've said or thought for some time…
“What magnificient decison-making powers over the hiring practices of the World Bank have I just been granted?”
Fortunately, none. But who wakes up in the morning and says: “I must write an article defending poor Paul Wolfowitz today. I know my hero Christopher Hitchens has already gone to great lengths to defend the man, but what the hell? It could score me some more points with the right people.”
"The larger point, however, is this: shouldn't the matter be heard and the decision be made BY the World Bank, rather than, say, Mike Weiss?"
What magnificient decison-making powers over the hiring practices of the World Bank have I just been granted?Â
You act as if Bush’s “almost laughable” (as you wrote yourself) appointment of Wolfowitz was an exercise in good governance and accountability. About the furthest thing from it. No, his reign was imposed on the Bank, and they have every right to reject him, even if it means resorting to pretenses when provided with no other alternative. I frankly don’t care about the particulars of whether or not what he did amounts to corruption. My hunch is that it does, and people in the World Bank obviously believe it does, and they’re perfectly capable of arguing the case themselves. The larger point, however, is this: shouldn’t the matter be heard and the decision be made BY the World Bank, rather than, say, Mike Weiss?
Yes, Michael and I disagree incessantly. For example, despite my almost superhuman patience in explaining to him the moral folly of his carnivorism, he persists in eating meat. He even taunts me by expressing doubt that my pleather shoes are not in fact leather. You could say that I am a polyanna and he is a cynic; but it would be truer to say that the man is just mean. I'm a Mahatma, a great soul, and he's a cranky Anglicized Yankee intellectual who tries to trip me up as I practice my JoeyDharma. It's an awkward and difficult pairing, much more so than you can possibly imagine.
"My feeling is that they have to right to get rid of Wolfowitz for any reason they want."Â
The naked will-to-power of the mob as the governing principle of an organization that seeks facillitate good governance, accountability, and the rule of law among its aid recipients. As with Mr. Miyagi's crane kick, there can be neither defense nor counterattack. You win.
Joey and I disagree all the time. For instance, he thinks Anonymous commenters with nothing substantive or clever to say should be engaged. I don't.
I particularly like the way Mike and Joey double-team on anyone who disagrees. Since they usually have the same point of view, it’s not exacly a rare ocurrence.
Shouldn’t the World Bank have the right to decide for itself who its leader is? My feeling is that they have to right to get rid of Wolfowitz for any reason they want. Don’t try to tell me the World Bank cannot focus on the problems of the developing world without him. As far as I know, he was placed there against the wishes the Bank in the first place. The US needs to back off and allow the European Union – the primary sponsor of the Bank – to have more of a say over these matters.
Michael, I don’t care if you ever talk to me again or not. I know you’re whole bag is to pick fights with people and then run away. That’s what almost all conservatives do. As soon as anyone fights back, you guys go running for the hills, crying foul.
“And I know the voices in your head are still furious because I refuse to talk to you anymore. But honestly, short of writing Seung-Hui Cho’s eulogy or agreeing that your expulsion from Siberia was part of a far-reaching government plot to silence you, what could I do to win you over again?”
Name calling and snark. No wonder you’re on the same payroll as Chris Hitchens.
I confess that my history may be a bit rusty, but I don't recall that the lord of a fief commonly announced a potential conflict of interest and sought the ongoing guidance of a fief ethics committee in resolving it.
A reasonable lesson here is that the ethics committee needs to establish an unambiguous protocol for resolving future such situations. Unfortunately that didn't exist for Wolfowitz, and the ambiguity is now being exploited by others to resolve unrelated grievances with him. That's the only glaring ethics violation here. Misrepresenting a knifing in a turf war as an issue of ethical probity. Though I suppose that's how these things work. In any case, the idea that he should lose his job over this is laughable.
"Does one of the most powerful men on earth, Wolfowitz, still need more defenses written on his behalf?" Whether the head of the World Bank is "one of the most powerful men on Earth" is neither here nor there. The people who need defense are those who most need an effective World Bank. If members of the organization are spending their energy and time trying to whack Western political opponents rather than focusing on the problems of the developing word, then yes, this needs to be written about.
And I know the voices in your head are still furious because I refuse to talk to you anymore. But honestly, short of writing Seung-Hui Cho's eulogy or agreeing that your expulsion from Siberia was part of a far-reaching government plot to silence you, what could I do to win you over again?
Riza's reassignment and promotion were determined by the Ethics Committee. See this letter from Melkert to Wolfowitz:
"That the staff member will be relocated to a position beyond (potential) supervising influence by the President and therefore will withdraw from the current selection procedure for job promotion within the MENA department; b) That at the same time the potential disruption of the staff member’s career prospect will be recognized by an in situ promotion on the basis of her qualifying record as confirmed by her shortlisting for the current job process and as consistent with the practice of the Bank."
Moreoever, Riza was due for a promotion based on her exemplary record at the bank, and if you'll read up on the history of how conflicts of interest are resolved there, you'll find that the promotion-and-raise course is the most typical. It's intended to keep the affected staff member from quitting due to public obloquy; also to remove her from the supervision of her boss. (The first part surely wasn't accomplished given the media coverage of this non-story, but the second part was.)
This procedure was followed by Wolfowitz. The only unprecedented aspect of the Riza case was that she wasn't married or a resident partner of the "Requestor"– had she been, the rules would have been more firmly established.
But please explain how it's a sign of corruption to present your relationship before an insititutional ethics committee and say, "I'd like to remove myself from all further decisions regarding this employee"? That Melkert decided Wolfowitz couldn't do that, and that it was going to be up to him to handle Riza's reassignment, is hardly the fault of Wolfowitz.
Also, all World Bank employees' income is tax exempt, which fact makes Riza's salary more than a lot of U.S. officials. So what? Â
Michael,
I started laughing when I saw that you had written this defense of Paul Wolfowitz. What, was Hitch’s defense of Wolfowitz in Slate (as if even that were even necessary) somehow inadequate? Does one of the most powerful men on earth, Wolfowitz, still need more defenses written on his behalf, as if he were somehow incapable of defending himself, or as if your insights would somehow turn the tide for the man? In addition to being an obvious suck-up job to power, this piece is yet another shameless ripoff of Hitchens – similar language (i.e. “ridiculous non-scandal”), while quoting that I.F. Stone line that Hitchens himself is often fond of quoting. You need to shut off your act. You’ve become a caricature of yourself. Why don’t you start thinking for yourself, for a change?
Ruling the World Bank like it’s your personal fiefdom and appointing your girlfreind to a salary more than that of the Secretary of State’s is not a non-issue. Nepotism at a public institution is never a non-issue!
To call this a non-issue is to say “I’m totally ok with corruption. Maybe he can have his goldfish draw a salary, too. It’s ok because of all the good work he does!”
Even if he was doing good work (and I disagree that he is), why doesn’t this corruption bother you in and of itself?
I think all of us here are liberal in some respects (gay marriage now! vegetarianism now! liberal immigration policy now!). But I agree with Michael. Wolfowitz is being purged for his support of the Iraq war. Unfortunately, left-liberal politics still play a hugely important role in establishing group identity in activist groups. If you've seen baboons groom each other, you have a sense of how it works. That's why it was almost laughable when Bush appointed Wolfie to his current position. Was there anyone more hated by the activist left than he? Still, I'm amazed that the Riza non-event is taken seriously by so many. For those who are interested in such trivia, this article gives a sense of what the cost of the purge will be for those who most need the support of the World Bank.
The guy gave preference and a huge salary to his girlfriend! How much more transparent does the corruption have to be?! Can we please have a liberal commentator now?
One?
JUST ONE?!?!?!
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