Let’s see - mistakes were made, I apologize and despite the mistakes that were made, I beleive that I can continue to lead my department or organization. Have I got that about right? And how many times have we heard this line to excuse incompentence or crimminal behaviour. Too many to count.

Wolfowitz’s girlfriend problem

Not only did the World Bank president find his companion Shaha Ali Riza a cushy job in the State Department, but she received a security clearance — unprecedented for a foreign national.

Wolfowitz’s World Bank scandal over his girlfriend reveals many of the same qualities that created the wreckage he left in his wake in Iraq: grandiosity, cronyism, self-dealing and lying — followed by an energetic campaign to deflect accountability. As with the war, he has retreated behind his fervent profession of good intentions to excuse himself. The ginning up of the conservative propaganda mill that once disseminated Wolfowitz’s disinformation on WMD to defend him as the innocent victim of a political smear only underlines his tried-and-true methods of operation. The hollowness of his defense echoes in the thunderous absurdity of Monday’s Wall Street Journal editorial: “Paul Wolfowitz, meet the Duke lacrosse team.”