What does it take to get fired?
I’m starting to plan how I’ll wrap up my current research projects, while also starting to plan my new projects when I start my faculty job this fall. With all of this career-related thinking going on, I naturally start to read the newspaper from the standpoint of employment and career development. So the following questions leap out at me:
1) Isn’t lying your ass off to start a disastrous war even worse than giving your girlfriend a cushy job at the World Bank? Yet Paul Wolfowitz, whose career was hardly impeded by the fact that he was a key architect of the bloody mess in Iraq, is likely to get in deep trouble for shennanigans with his girlfriend and her job.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the SOB is getting in trouble, he deserves whatever misery he gets (and then some), and using your position to give your girlfriend a really cushy position is certainly A Bad Thing. But I’m just stumped that this, of all things, will be his downfall.
2) I’ll be the first to agree that dubious firings are A Bad Thing (we’ll stipulate, at least for the sake of argument, that the firings were lawful), and that lying to cover up the circumstances of those firings is also A Bad Thing. But isn’t writing a memo to justify torture even worse?
Again, I’ll be thrilled if Gonzales gets in trouble and loses his job. But I’m just stumped that of all the things that would bring him down, it would be this.
3) To get back to the topic of lying your ass off to start a war, if lying your ass off in a research article is bad, isn’t lying your ass off to start a war even worse? Yet Douglas Feith, a dude who lied his ass off to start a war, is on the faculty at Georgetown. People have been kicked out of academic jobs for all sorts of dishonesty (and rightfully so!), yet apparently lying your ass off to start a disastrous war is OK. In fact, starting a disastrous war apparently qualifies one to teach foreign policy.
So far no word on Feith being fired. My guess is that at some point he’ll fudge a travel expense report, and that will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
4) To stick with the topic of lying your ass off to start a war, how the hell does George Bush still have a job? Can somebody explain this to me?
5) Finally, the Imus firing (for the record, I have zero problem with a guy getting fired for making remarks that would offend any decent person in the audience) gives me an idea: Since sex is impeachable, but lying your ass off to start a disastrous war isn’t, let’s arrange for a prostitute to visit George Bush. Then, when he denies the deed, he can use some of the words that Imus used, and he’ll be out the door in no time.
Sorry, I’m in a grouchy mood right now. I made the mistake of reading the news.
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator —
April 14, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
World Bank chief comes under fire…
WASHINGTON | World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz publicly apologized Thursday for the “mistake…
Comment by Derek Copold —
April 14, 2007 @ 1:30 pm
They brought Al Capone down with a tax charge. You go with what sticks.
As for the whole lying us into war trope, the fact is that it was pretty apparent to anyone examining the case brought forward at the time that the Bush Administration was lying. You had article after article in the press showing how hollow the charges were. Some were just howlers. Remember the drones of death, weed-whacker-motor-powered planes that would disperse anthrax all over the fruited plains?
The real truth is that not only were the Bushbots lying, but that rest of the nation wanted to be deceived. I remember arguing with my professor of Medieval Philsophy in 2003(FWIW, not a religious zealot, either) that the whole was a tissue of lies. Both before and during the war, he grabbed onto every assertion and “find” like they were manna. Having them disproven the next day did nothing to weaken his faith.
Comment by Karen —
April 14, 2007 @ 1:56 pm
I love the prostitute idea, but can we make it a drag queen instead?
Comment by Dave W. —
April 14, 2007 @ 2:44 pm
To stick with the topic of lying your ass off to start a war, how the hell does George Bush still have a job? Can somebody explain this to me?
During the first couple years of the Iraq War too many people thought that “our cause was just.”
Not enough people have been able to sufficiently change their minds and admit that our cause, in Iraq, is not just.
If they did, Bush will be gone, but for so many people this admission that they were wrong requires more humility than they can muster. Given that, I don’t think Bush will have any problem riding it out til the end of his term.
Comment by Keifus —
April 14, 2007 @ 5:40 pm
Weellll, number one does have the irony factor going for it. Wolfie’s big thing at teh World Bank, to the extent he’s done anything, has been anti-corruption.
But you’re right. It’s fucked up.
Comment by Barry —
April 14, 2007 @ 6:36 pm
Keifus, perhaps I’m incurably cynical, but when the head of an institution has been caught putting his gf in for special treatment, I’d treat his ‘anti-corruption’ stuff as lies until proven true.
Comment by Barry —
April 14, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
I once read a comment by some guy whose father was connected with, well, some ‘wise guys’. He said that his father’s friends all advised him to go to law school. That they said that a lawyer can steal more with a briefcase than one of them with a tommy gun.
Yet another data point in support of that theory. Kill hundreds of thousands, waste hundreds of billions of $ – kewl. A few tens of thousands to his squeeze – ‘we’re shocked!’.
Comment by Keifus —
April 14, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
Don’t get me wrong, “ending corruption” is every bit the do-nothing political promise as “trimming waste.” Ironic banners for a sinecure.
It makes getting caught like that just a little bit funnier.
Comment by dbomp —
April 14, 2007 @ 9:49 pm
Am I the only one who thinks that the concept of “Wolfowitz’s girlfriend” is giggle-inducing?
Comment by Thoreau —
April 14, 2007 @ 10:05 pm
Karen-
OK, drag queen it is, but the hair has to be the sort that can elicit the adjectives that Imus used.
We need to maximize the impeachability of this offense!
And yes, the idea of any woman willingly sleeping with Wolfowitz is hilarious. What will be even more hilarious is when we learn that the salary was only the tip of the iceberg, and she was actually sleeping with him to get access to his computer password or locked filing cabinet or whatever so she can embezzle funds.
(I don’t know that this is what’s happening, but since Wolfowitz was conned by Ahmed Chalabi I just naturally assume that he’s being conned yet again.)
Comment by Rob —
April 15, 2007 @ 10:39 am
The problem you have here is the idea that firing can actually happen at this level. Wolfowitz will likely slink away from the World Bank, but he’ll be hired right away just as he was fired from running the war and sent to the World Bank to begin with. His screw ups are only signposts to job changes. He’ll at least get a bunch of directorships of different think tanks and seats on a bunch of corporate boards.
Comment by TallDave —
April 19, 2007 @ 3:22 pm
Wlfowitz DID NOT get his girlfriend a raise. He disclosed the relationship and THE BANK said she should be given a raise to compensate her for being transferred to a position where she would not be reporting to Wolfowitz. That allegation is one of the most reprehensible and dishonest smear jobs ever perpetrated.
As for Iraq, people seem to forget there was an opportunity cost to leaving Saddam’s thugocracy in power, especially since the sanctions regime was corrupted and collapsing. Shia and Kurds are still digging their relatives out of mass graves. The fact that the Sunni Arabs keep setting off bombs does not discredit the progress in Kurdish and Shia areas.
While there may still be considerable violence in Iraq, we have at least ensured the worst thugs can only set off car bombs rather than control the country, invade their neighbors and use WMD against their own people.