World Bank President: NYT: White House to Move Quickly [update]

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NYT: White House to Move Quickly [update] Disturbing reading from the NYT. The White House and Treasury are moving quickly to find a replacement. Some implications of the article below the fold. [update: Bloomberg chips in from Germany: Germany and Japan back U.S. prerogative. How about they relinquish their control over the IMF and MIGA respectively, as well as refusing to allow Bush to put in another of his cronies]

- In terms of names:, Two names that are the focus of initial speculation are Douglas A. Warner III, the former chairman of JPMorgan Chase, and Richard Levin, an economist who is president of Yale and is close to Mr. Bush.

Also being mentioned are Bill Frist, the former senator from Tennessee and former Senate majority leader, and Robert B. Zoellick, the former deputy secretary of state and trade representative.

- The piece has a couple of inaccuracies. Tony Fratto is at Treasury, last I checked (he was one of the people involved with the 2005 debt cancellation deal). Also, Wolfowitz earns in excess of $390,000 as has already been mentioned on this blog, not the $302k that this article gives as the figure.

- It seems Bush and co. want a long term, not an interim successor. This is disastrous. It means an extra two years of a Bush appointee.

For those interested in meaningful governance reform, we have to stop this process before it gets to the level of naming names.

Sameer Dossani ~ May 18, 2007

Comments

Is anyone questioning the appropriateness of him earning 6 weeks of income, not to mention another year's worth of compensation, just to allow him to say good-bye to supporters and take an all-expense paid trip to Africa? This is not a corporation; it is an international tax-payer funded organization whose objective is to help the poor! Having him take some of that money for doing what he proposes in his letter seems immoral to me.

Someone in DC ~ May 18, 2007, 09:02 PM

Fratto was at Tsy until fairly recently. He moved to the WH after John Taylor left the Tsy Dept, he was close to that guy.

A.M. Mora y Leon ~ May 18, 2007, 09:06 PM

“We want someone who has a real passion for lifting people out of poverty."

Simply not credible coming from this regime in this country.

"The administration also reiterated today that the president of the bank should continue to be an American, as has been the case since it was founded."

Reiteration implies insecurity?

Peter Jones ~ May 18, 2007, 09:10 PM

What did you all expect? Of course they will quickly name a successor, and that will be that. Once confirmed, that individual will take over and hopefully clean house of the whining element.

DC Worker ~ May 18, 2007, 09:31 PM

And that's alright? It's ok for the Bank to follow the whims and dictates of the Bush administration without even a pretense at democratic process?

Sameer Dossani ~ May 18, 2007, 10:40 PM

Bill Frist is the Republican politician who diagnosed a brain dead woman using a video of her lying in a vegetative state, and prospered enormously from his family's health care company. Not suitable on both counts, and should stick to doctoring now that he's been chased out of politics for his links to various other Bush regime scandals.

shocked ~ May 18, 2007, 10:52 PM

Anyone but Frist. Please.

Rick Levin has done a fantastic job at Yale (I'm an alumnus), but he is not by any means the right choice, and his appointment would border on the insulting.

Joe Mama ~ May 18, 2007, 11:04 PM

Anyone but Frist. Please.

Rick Levin has done a fantastic job at Yale (I'm an alumnus), but he is not by any means the right choice, and his appointment would border on the insulting.

Joe Mama ~ May 18, 2007, 11:05 PM

Tony Fratto moved to the Whitehouse some months back

sandy ~ May 19, 2007, 01:00 AM

"Of course President Wolfowitz has our full confidence," White House spokesman Tony Fratto told Reuters. "In dealing with this issue, he has taken full responsibility and is working with the executive board to resolve it," he added. (April 12, 2007)

White House Spokeman ~ May 19, 2007, 02:29 AM

Frist Killed my pussycats!

"By his own account, Frist improperly obtained these cats from Boston animal shelters, falsely telling shelter staff he was adopting the cats as pets. In his 1989 book Transplant, Frist admitted that he killed these cats during medical experiments at Harvard Medical School, as part of what he claimed were his studies.
According to an ASPCA lawyer, Frist's action was "fraudulent and probably was illegal". Another ASPCA official stated it "probably would be considered cruel." Massachusetts has a criminal statute prohibiting cruelty to animals. Frist was never charged under this statute and his defenders have pointed out that until 1983 Massachusetts law permitted shelters to release animals for laboratory experiments, and some states continue to permit such activity today. Because the Boston area animal shelters in Frist's case did not release the animals to Frist knowing they would be used for experimentation (due to the manner in which he obtained the cats), these laws may not have applied to the facts presently in the public record about Frist's actions. However, the statute of limitations has passed."(Wikipedia)

Deuteronomy and Mistofeles

Deuteronomy and Mistofeles ~ May 19, 2007, 02:58 AM

Suggestion to the WPB team: Your own checklist here of desired good qualities and undesired bad qualities in the candidates could capture media attention and help to box Bush in. Must be pro family planning and seriously anti global warming, things like that.

Peter Quennell ~ May 19, 2007, 03:51 AM

Frist dropped out of politics like a 2-ton rock when it became clear that his ETHICS were below the bottom of the sleaze barrel that politicians pretend to have to respect.

He has a reptilian face, as if caught in the act of eating a defenseless baby rabbit. The kind of face a cat murderer has.

This trail balloon is another Frat-Boy Bush moon to everyone not in his small, extreme right-wing neocon coterie. Every day, in every way, he shows that while you may have thought you'd seen his worst, he's got "improve" on his list of accumulated horrors against humanity....it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse....if there is indeed a God, lightning will vaporize him as he bestows another Medal of Freedom on Odiouswitz....on camera, while he smirks, leans forward on one elbow and says "Bring it on again".

Osama cannot believe his luck -- Bush helps him prove that God is on his side, and with each passing day, the world believes him.

The Mahdi ~ May 19, 2007, 04:03 AM

Peter has a brilliant point.

WB employees can quietly lobby (by things like planting stories in the press) for the characteristics of a good President.

If the Bush administration could not stop the PW Resign train, it probably do not have the capital or the will to impose another nut on the Bank --- and risk an open rupture of the existing gentleman's agreement.

As it stands, the evidence is that the US no longer solely nominates the President.

None ~ May 19, 2007, 05:31 AM

Watch video of a very interesting lecture presented by Ashraf Ghani.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6233668164073678189&q=Ashraf+Ghani&hl=en

(He may also be a naturalized american, does anyone know?)

Better than many others.

Get to know them ~ May 19, 2007, 05:41 AM

Please, please PLEASE not Frist. That would be catastrophic. Not Leach, either. No legislators, let's hire an executive.

Rick Levin has done a superb job at Yale (I'm an alumnus), and in his favor is fundraising acumen, leading an institution with disparate and occasionally emotional constituencies that are often at odds, and keeping an even keel. He has, for someone in his job, an international focus (particularly on China). All that said, I don't think he's the right choice, either. Telling that the institutions the US administration source says might be the source of the candidates includes universities.

To answer the last poster, I've read elsewhere that Ashraf Ghani holds US citizenship.

Joe Mama ~ May 19, 2007, 07:34 AM

Sameer: Yes, it's quite alright for the following reason:

The United States pays the most money. Thus, they get to choose the President of the WB.

DC Worker ~ May 19, 2007, 08:37 AM

DC Worker: You are necessary in this blogs, a true patriot and there are few who give and take it like you. (mind if I call you Dizzy for short?)

Dizzy: Using your plutocratic logic it follows that since the non americans put 83 percent of the money (capital) to the US 17 percent the next president should be a pro America, non-american.

American ~ May 19, 2007, 07:06 PM

'Pro-America' is awfully open to interpretation these days. It has to be proamerica in a recognizable sense. How that's determined is the question.

anon ~ May 19, 2007, 07:14 PM

That question these days is the central question of our time. I placed that word "pro America" for a reason. We live in a time of definition.

American values, freedom, human rights, generosity, legality, honesty, compassion, tolerance, multiracial and multicultural, all the goodness of America.

American ~ May 19, 2007, 10:33 PM

Anyone who wants the job can declare himself 'proamerica' and go right on thinking what he wants. But words have to mean something - and there is at least a bottom threshold of what proamerican and antiamerican really are. This is why Mark Malloch Brown will never make it as WB chief. His openly stated contempt for American PEOPLE (not even the government, the people!) who question the UN, dismissing them as 'Rush Limbaugh listeners' is clearly in the antiamerican category. Guy literally hates the people who write his paycheck and has no idea about who listens to limbaugh and who doesn't.

anon ~ May 20, 2007, 05:33 PM

He misspoke, should have said Limbaugh, Coulter, Bolton, O'Reilly and others in the FOX den paid by Murderoch, who hide behind the flag and false patriotism. Those are the "anti american" values crowd.

By the way, the people who now write Sir Mark Malloch-Brown' s checks are those of the Open Society and George Soros.

Badabing! ~ May 20, 2007, 10:29 PM

American: Why thank you so much.

However, using YOUR logic, you would have the non-American contributors count as one body, and have them unified en masse to justify your position that a non-American should be chosen because of that fact. I'm sorry, but the world does not operate on this premise. When one nation provides the most financial support, facilities, infrastructure, tax breaks, presence of foreign nationals, and the unenviable chore of supporting the WB, that same nation then gets first crack at naming the President of the organization. Thus, when a majority shareholder holds that same advantage, he gets that same right as a result of his vote. The minority shareholders are a group, but the shares are held individually, and each vote is counted on that basis.

Badabing: Look out for the black helicopters. Paranoid people usually see them.

DC Worker ~ May 22, 2007, 06:16 AM

Not black but stealthy and silent, (some foreigners are behind you.... watching you.....)

So, who should we expect to be nominated by the americans?
How quickly will they move, will they go for a consensus candidate?

We all wait with bated breadth.....

Badabing! ~ May 23, 2007, 03:42 AM

"Keep track of the rumored candidates, power plays and buzz."
The Washington Post

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