Wolfowitz

David Brooks may be way off on the percentages, and he may dutifully neglect that those percentages are very nearly flipped in Republican-staffed government agencies under George Bush, but he sure does understand how to operate under political duress:

Let’s say you’re a Republican appointed to an important job in Washington. You’ll probably find that 90 percent of the people who work in your agency are Democrats, as are 90 percent of the media types who cover you and 90 percent of the academics who comment on your work.

But here’s the thing to remember: There are Democrats, and then there are Democrats. A quarter of the Democrats you’ll work with are partisans. They believe the rantings of the agitprop pundits, and they’ll never be open-minded toward you. But the other three-quarters are honorable, intelligent people. If you treat these people with respect, and find places where you can work together, they will teach you things and make you more effective.

I think that´s perfectly fair. But in regard to Paul Wolfowitz, he writes, ¨If you treat them the way you treat the partisans, they’ll turn into partisans and destroy you.¨ The thing is, this is probably true for just about everybody except for Paul Wolfowitz, who is, by this*** account anyhow, swinging his fists so blindly that he´s actually destroying himself.

***=OK This is a fake. No more post bus-ride blogging for me.

Comments

[Sarah Brennan]

Brian you know the "account" you linked to here is a fake memo, right?!

What made this column good is that Brooks cuts to the heart of why this is happening to Wolfowitz. Namely, that this scandal is less about his girlfriend's increased pay --which was after all previously approved by the ethics committee after review, making the committee just as culpable-- and more about the fact that he failed to effectively establish himself as a leader at the Bank.

If he had, he could have drawn on a reservoir of institutional support to help ride out the storm. Instead, he's a hair's-breadth away from getting canned.

[anon]

If they fire his girl friend, he'll be swinging his fists even MORE wildly!

By the way, do 60 year old men have "girl friends"?