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>>This was a railroad job. Moral: Never piss off the corrupt, entrenched bureaucrats.<<

There is another lesson. When your job is to root out corrupt entrenched bureaucrats, be extra careful to toe the line yourself because they will use any error in judgment against you.

This is political. But Wolfowitz still screwed up.
That said, he lasted longer than the President could have reasonably hoped for.

“There is another lesson. When your job is to root out corrupt entrenched bureaucrats, be extra careful to toe the line yourself because they will use any error in judgment against you.”

And, when:

(a)You know your “girlfriend” must resign, in spite of how many levels below you she is(no direct role from him to her or vice-a-versa), and

(b)when you go to the head of your boards “ethics” committee and tell him that you should be recused from decisions either (i) seeking her resignation, or (ii)financial matters likely to result from that request; and

(c)that “ethics” officials says no, you should handle it and lays out the financial concerns that ought be considered in her favor in consideration of a request that she resign; and

(d)you proceed based on the “ethics” official’s recommendations, ask him to review what is to be considered in her regard, financially, which he does and to which he makes no formal objection (but later said he did not believe he was “approving” those considerations, only reviewing them);

then to what is it that you did not “toe the line”, and what was your specific “error in judgement”.

The only error he made was in not referring the entire matter to his board, when their member in charge of “ethics” did not accept his, Wolfowitrz, request to recuse himself; and he should have demanded that his board appoint someone to handle it and keep him out of it. In going to the member of his board to which questions of “ethics” were to be received, and in every other act he took, there is not a single rule or procedure of the World Bank that he violated.