Someone at AEI sees through the smoke Philip Levy, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (a bastion of some of Paul Wolfowitz's apologists and the origin of some shrill and uninformed WSJ op-eds), has written a thoughtful piece this morning, about corruption.

It argues that there's probably no disagreement about why corruption is a bad thing (duh) with an intriguing last paragraph

The conflict at the Bank may not be the Manichaean struggle of a flawed hero against the forces of evil that has been portrayed in the press. If both sides share the objective of promoting development as effectively as possible, the explanation for the current remarkable levels of internal strife must lie somewhere else. Perhaps the members of the Bank staff association actually mean what they say.

Yes, it goes beyond talking the talk on good governance (something Paul Wolfowitz, and his predecessors, notably Jim Wolfensohn, and Bank managers and staff do) and walking the walk, on which Paul Wolfowitz has stumbled badly. The pattern of cronyism and sweetheart deals (no pun intended, because the beneficiaries also include Kellums, Cleveland, Jackson, Folsom and some folks they've appointed, as well as Daboub and Palacio, collaborators from his "old job"), and the web of dishonesty he's spun around all this, are damaging the Bank's reputation and effectiveness on the ground.

And the Staff Association, the Bank's senior management, the GAC implementation team and several hundred more staff working on related issues, many governments and much of civil society worldwide are on record that that's why he has to go.

Nobody likes corruption.

Deep Insider ~ May 04, 2007

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