Don’t Overlook the Cleveland Story

So many World Bank stories have emerged over the couple of days that smaller, yet important, stories are slipping through the cracks of many outlets. To be a bit clearer, these stories are not really any less important at all, they just do not directly relate to the back-and-forth going on right now between Wolfowitz and the Ad Hoc Committee. But they should be noticed.

One great example of this is yesterday’s report by the Financial Times that Robin Cleveland, one of two high-profile Wolfowitz aides to come under heavy criticism recently, has been caught crafting deceiving statements regarding the Riza scandal to be used in communications with journalists.

Just to keep track: Robin Cleveland is now misleading the press; Kevin Kellems, the other top Wolfowitz aide who was caught misleading the press, happened to resign yesterday; and Paul Wolfowitz and his lawyers have been misleading just about everybody.

Of course the news that swamped this up is that the Ad Hoc Committee report will find that Wolfowitz broke the rules with his conduct, that a deal between the U.S. and Europe is brewing (Wolfowitz steps down if the U.S. retains presidential naming rights), and that the Bank will be seriously hurting for funding if Wolfowitz retains his position, as the Europeans are furious.  

Also, the White House is either staying out of the affair, or saying that Wolfowitz can still be an effective leader at the Bank, depending on which story you read.  

Wolfowitz’ lawyers are now asking for more time to respond to the Ad Hoc report, calling it “terribly unfair” to ask Wolfowitz to draft a response within 2-3 days.

Right. It’s only been about six weeks now.

Oh, and Germany is gung ho about getting him out of there.

-Dylan Blaylock