today

Unconfirmed reports suggest that he's negotiating an exit deal in which he would be largely exonerated of any wrongdoing.

The Sacramento Bee seem to view this matter as involving a complex piece of domestic workplace politics and say "Both employers and employees may benefit from more creative solutions than the self-imposed ethics straitjacket the World Bank employed in l'affaire Wolfowitz."

This sort of thing seems to be a clumsy US attempt to whitewash Wolfowitz's fraud.

If the US wants to involve itself in ancient suffragette style debates, the world does not care much. But the Bush administration and the Bank itself emerge tarnished by the whole affair.The rest of the world, outside the US, wants a non US World Bank president.

Mr. Paulson, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley all actively lobbied their counterparts in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada, the bank's main shareholders along with the U.S. Their arguments that Mr. Wolfowitz didn't deserve to be forced out appeared to gain few adherents: Only Japan, among these countries, stood by in support of Mr. Wolfowitz.

Wolfowitz was one of the key architects of the Iraq war.That is bad enough, as the subsequent Iraq position suggest that, whether or not the Iraq war seemed like a good idea, that idea was extremely badly implemented and casts doubts on Wolfowitz's overall credibility. And there's plenty more.

And the Bank has enough problems anyway, best handled without Wolfowitz.

IMO: Lompoc for Wolfowitz, Bush and Carl Rove and the World Bank needs lots of improving too.