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“Or be so arrogant as to think nobody will care if you rig the system to get a plumb job for a woman because she’s your girlfriend.”

You are totally ignorant on this case aren’t you.

He “rigged” nothing.

She was employed there before he went there.

When he went there everyone, including her, understood that she was going to be asked to resign, even though she was so many levels below his position that they would have no direct, or even indirect work relationship with each other at the bank.

He went to the head his board’s ethics committee, seeking his input on handling the matter and suggested to that official that he, Wolfowitz, be recused from any participation in the matter.

That official did not accept Wolfowitz recusal and said he, Wolfowitz, should personally deal with the matter and laid out some of the financial considerations that would be in line to be considered, in lieu of the request that she resign.

Wolfowitz then followed those recommendations in his discussions with the bank’s HR officials, reached an agreement with those officials, sought the ethics official’s review of those agreements and then let the appropriate departments carry them out. Nothing was done in secret and nothing was done to any violation of any World Bank rule or procedure. Nothing was offered her that was out of bounds of the kind of considerations that would be made by the bank when someone in her position was being asked to resign, due to no fault of her own.

The error Wolfowitz made was not being politically savy enough to realize that European members of his board, working through their member heading the “ethics” committee, were setting him up.

Nothing was “rigged”, except the attack the Europeans had set him up for - creating a “scandal” that wasn’t and then blaming the chief victim of their manufactured scandal.