June 25, 2004

"Frankly, part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors," Paul Wolfowitz declared Tuesday.
posted by shawnj 20 years ago
  • To be totally fair, he did retract this statement yesterday and apologized for making it in the first place. That said, he's still a tool.
  • True. But saying "Hey, I take that back" doesn't really erase the fact that he said it with full seriousness and with meaning in the first place.
  • On the contrary, Wolfowitz' mea culpa was not any minor retraction, but a sweeping apology to print & TV journalists. This contrition is as rare as tits on a frog from this administration, and should tell you something about their dismay right now. The Bush Admin. can certainly ill-afford to alienate the media, especially now. After all, they rely on the media to spread their lies for them. Oops! Was I partisan just then? Sorry about that. It's also an insight into this chickenhawk's own mentality. Wolfowitz cannot imagine that anyone would really put themselves in harm's way for the sake of a story - cos he sure as hell wouldn't. This little slip just reveals the way he thinks - and that he's projecting his own persona onto the journos. Oh, and I respectfully disagree with surlyboi - Wolfowitz is not a tool. He's a class-A Fuckhead.
  • Monkeyfilter: as rare as tits on a frog.
  • damn! musing beat me.
  • Monkeyfilter: Damn! Beat me!
  • What. Nostril. SAID.
  • Wolfowitz is not a tool. He's a class-A Fuckhead That's Fucktard.
  • Fuckhead & Fucktard are on an equal footing, as far as labels of abuse. I prefer Fuckhead, because to label Dick a Fucktard is to insult Tards everywhere. Dick also likes to try to fuck with your head in a negative, nasty, slimy, pale and villainous way. However, I agree that the distinction is largely in the mind of the observer. There is only one answer to this dilemma. LOWER THE FUCK-o-DOME!
  • "What I'm hearing from colleagues is, 'Let's not push the Americans too hard,' " a senior European official involved in policy on the bank told the paper. "We want to avoid a split between the United States and its European allies. We're willing to say: 'OK, you find a capable American to run this institution and we can live with that.' " Ouch. "Capable" - Ohhh! What do they waaaant?! European countries will drop demand that they pick next World Bank president if Wolfowitz agrees to leave soon, newspaper says.
  • Hommy: problems with numbers? Bush hasn't noticed. The went to the same school--took Engly-ish and math together, too. Studied neuklar science there, too. Just one more politico to be ashamed of.
  • Mmm MNNN! That's some tasty schadenfreude!
  • Wolfowitz thought that he ought to be director of the CIA. But as soon as he advanced himself, his estranged wife, Clare, wrote a private letter to President-elect Bush saying that he could not be trusted. This embittered letter remained a closely guarded secret, although a former high official of the CIA told me about it. Chris Nelson also reported it on April 16 in his widely respected, nonpartisan foreign policy newsletter: "A certain Ms. Riza was even then Wolfowitz's true love. The problem for the CIA wasn't just that she was a foreign national, although that was and is today an issue for anyone interested in CIA employment. The problem was that Wolfowitz was married to someone else, and that someone was really angry about it, and she found a way to bring her complaint directly to the President. So when we, with our characteristic innocence, put Wolfowitz on our short-list for CIA, we were instantly told, by a very, very, very senior Republican foreign policy operative, 'I don't think so.' It was then gently explained why, purely on background, of course. Why Wolfowitz's personal issues weren't also a disqualification for DOD we've never heard." The Daily Mail of London also reported on his wife's letter at the time that Wolfowitz was appointed president of the World Bank in 2005. Asked about it by the newspaper, Clare Wolfowitz did not deny it, saying, "That's very interesting but not something I can tell you about."