Being an Adult Means Having to Say You’re Sorry…Period
So, what’s the scandal du jour? Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, has recently admitted that he “signed off on Riza’s [his girlfriend’s] promotion and salary increase without a review by an ethics committee nor the board’s chairman.”
To his credit, Wolfowitz has admitted to the action and stated it was a mistake. As I watched this on CNN, I was surprised…someone out and out accepting responsibility for his actions. Then he spoiled it by saying that he was in “uncharted waters” and “still new in his job.”
Sorry, but no. That’s not an acceptable apology. Yes, he had just started at the World Bank, but he was not a new player in Washington. How long does he think he needed to be in that job before he realized that such a promotion could be construed as a conflict of interest? Six months? One year? Two?
No, it’s wrong, and he knew it. He may have felt pressured, or he may have honestly believed she deserved the promotion. But he knew: “In hindsight, I wish I had trusted my original instincts and kept myself out of the negotiations.” As president of the World Bank he needs to appear scrupulously honest, and this incident counters that. Then to make matters worse, he attempts to use his inexperience as an excuse.
He had me at “I’m sorry.” He lost me when he started making excuses. We’ll see if the World Bank’s board of directors agrees.
What about you?
Be brave. Be human.
Susan
April 16th, 2007 23:56
Man, what’s with everyone apologizing all the time now. Imus, Wolfowitz. Before it was Mel Gibson then Michael Richards. It’s meaningless now, they should just stop doing it.
April 17th, 2007 02:04
Yes… “live your life as though apology is not an option”.
I don’t quite understand the media focus on whether or not he will resign. It shouldn’t matter whether or not he resigns, cos it should be 100% unequivocally clear that he’s going to be fired. He has failed a fundamental performance indicator. He should have been asked to clear his desk as soon as the transgression was evident.
Like Librocrat I think it is not about apologising, it is about doing the right thing in the first place, and if you fall short, then you should ACT appropriately — not ’say the appropriate things’.
I don’t remember much homely wisdom from my mother, but I do remember her saying ‘Any fool can be sorry afterwards’, a number of times. *sigh* I was a very careless child. I hope I’ve learnt better.
April 17th, 2007 07:19
Hi Gillian-
Good point. I was so annoyed by the excuses that I missed the larger issue… he clearly doesn’t belong in that position.
Susan
April 17th, 2007 08:02
Yes, I suspect that all the posturing about resigning - will he/won’t he? - is a kind of bluff in the negotiation process. He hopes that his sponsors and supporters will lean on his boss so he doesn’t get kicked out. He’s buying time and testing the waters of public and stakeholder support.
It distracts us from the key point that his resignation is irrelevant, the moral responsibility for action lies with his boss.
April 17th, 2007 12:15
I say they absolutely need to can his a$$. He clearly should have known better. The president of my senior class in high school would have known better. He can half-heartedly apologize all he wants, but he doesn’t belong in that position.
April 17th, 2007 12:59
Hi Elena-
I’m sure he knew better….but if he didn’t, that’s another reason for him to go. Someone without a basic understanding of business ethics does not belong in such a position.
Susan
April 17th, 2007 13:18
Actually, I’m not entirely sure he DID know better. If he had pulled this within a corporation, no one would mention it. Such things are commonplace, and in upper echelons of corporate institutions are almost expected. His problem was that he is in a political position, not a corporate one.
April 17th, 2007 13:37
Hi Brian-
I really think he did know. As I said in the original post, he was quoted as saying, “In hindsight, I wish I had trusted my original instincts and kept myself out of the negotiations.”
I must say I’m surprised by your comments about corporate institutions…what’s your source?
Susan
April 18th, 2007 06:44
This appears to be an unholy smear job orchestrated by the usual suspects and aided and abetted by a complicit or, at least, credulous media. A round up of the facts that have finally been coming out in the press (WSJ, etc.) can be found here:
at the American Thinker
And yes, it is a conservative site!
April 18th, 2007 09:32
Hey Susan,
Expecting an honest apology from someone like Wolfowitz is like expecting the wolf to shed tears about all those poor little sheep he ate. The man is a part of the beast.
BTW, did you happen to catch The Daily Show on Tuesday night. Pretty hilarious commentary by John Stewart related to the Wolfowitz affair.
Good post, and thanks.
April 18th, 2007 10:54
Hi Keith-
Welcome to BH.
Didn’t see John Stewart…we did away with our cable service a while ago…unfortunately, my husband and daughter would watch jello set if it were on TV, so we have to be very careful what we have access to… luckily, we can still get PBS with rabbit ears. Gotta love Clifford, the Big Red Dog, although I do prefer John Stewart….
Susan
April 30th, 2007 23:05
What is hard to understand.
He is a rule breaker.
He is the head of a bank.
What part of this whole thing don’t you get.
He needs to go…. he is NOT HONEST.
May 1st, 2007 12:36
Hi Bon,
Welcome to Brave Humans.
When this post first went up, Wolfowitz was apologizing for making a mistake. Now he’s saying this is all a smear campaign. That seems inconsistent. I’m sure he’s worried about losing his job, but if he did nothing unseemly, why apologize in the first place?
Susan
May 17th, 2007 21:46
Update on Wolfowitz as the end game is in play.
Here’s an extract from an interview with Noam Chomsky on Foreign Policy in Focus, on 16 May 2007.
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4236
Chomsky:
Take Wolfowitz. The charges against Wolfowitz are maybe correct but pretty minor compared to his record. Forget his involvement in the Iraq war, let’s put that aside, though it was surely significant. He was the ambassador to Indonesia under Reagan. He was one of the strongest supporters of Suharto, who was one of the worst monsters in the modern period, comparable to Saddam Hussein. When Wolfowitz was appointed to the World Bank, Indonesian human rights and democracy activists were bitterly critical because he never lifted his finger to help them when he was ambassador. In fact, he harmed them and they explained how he did it.
Here’s a man who strongly opposes democracy, who strongly opposes human rights. That’s not the myth. The myth is his great ideals. But in his actions, he supported a hideous dictator and in fact he supported extreme corruption. Transparency International ranked Suharto’s Indonesia as the world champion in corruption. This is the man he was defending while at the same time saying that he was going to the World Bank to do something about corruption.
His record with regard to democracies is also outlandish. You may recall in Turkey, to everyone’s surprise, the government went along with the will of 95% of the population and did not let U.S. troops use the country as a base for the war against Iraq. There was bitter condemnation of Turkey in the United States, from Colin Powell and others. But the most extreme was Wolfowitz. He berated the Turkish military for permitting this to happen. He said, “look, you have power, you can force the civilian government to do what we want them to do. The idea that they should listen to 95% of the population is outrageous.” Then he demanded that Turkey apologize to the United States and in fact say that it understands its job to help the United States. A couple of months later he was being hailed as the “idealist-in-chief” leading the crusade for democracy.
Shank: So why is he going down now for a salary?
Chomsky: He’s very much disliked in the Bank. Apparently he’s very authoritarian. So they picked an issue on which to expel him: a kind of corruption issue and a governance issue. And that’s okay. It’s good to see corrupt people go down.