Then there's World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz. He acts as if it's all in a mogul's day to secure a pay raise for his girlfriend that was twice as large as allowed by bank rules in her move to the State Department. She now earns slightly more than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Although Wolfowitz got the hearing he said was his due on Monday, it only made things worse. He had claimed the support of the bank's ethics committee, but its former chairman, Ad Melkert, had a different story.

He said he told Wolfowitz his girlfriend needed to be moved to a job beyond his supervision and compensated for any disruption. But he said he didn't know about, let alone approve, his negotiating her pay package. Former general counsel Roberto Danino went further, saying Wolfowitz withheld information about the ``extraordinary salary increase'' and that he may have tried to ``deceive the board.''

Since coming to the bank, Wolfowitz adopted the attitude that everyone was corrupt until proven otherwise, hired unqualified cronies, and pushed U.S. views, such as an anti- abortion agenda, on an international body.

Just Ask Clinton

This was in keeping with his record at the Pentagon. As deputy secretary of defense, he boxed out anyone who didn't cooperate in his effort to prove Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

You're not being smeared if the accusation being raised against you is true, even if it's small compared to the other stuff you've done. Just ask former President Bill Clinton, nailed for lying about Monica Lewinsky.