As Wolfowitz Resigns, A Lie Of The Day

"I regret that it has come to this. I believe all parties in this matter have acted in good faith."
-- George W. Bush

In the tale of George Soro's takedown of the World Bank, nothing could be further from the truth than the president's claim that all parties acted in good faith.

For starters, Soros never showed his head, even though he was clearly manipulating the crisis in a teapot, which in my book does not constitute good faith.

Staffers of the World Bank, many of them quite adept at corruption on a grand scale, were not acting in good faith when they leaked mis-cast news of alleged financial favoratism directed at Wolfowitz's girlfriend, a matter of possible corruption on a very small scale.

And European World Bank directors, who a decade ago scoffed at Americans as bumpkins because we got so upset over a simple presidential sexual liaison with a hottie, were hardly exhibiting good faith when they skewered Wolfowitz on a lesser indiscretion.

It's times like this that my disappointment in George Bush runs pretty deep. The man is from Texas, for cryin' out loud, where they lead the nation as America's most colorful practitioners of American English. What the heck is, "I regret that it has come to this. I believe all parties in this matter have acted in good faith."

Some fire, passion and wit was called for here, like:

I regret that a good man with good intentions to heal a sick institution fell victim to that institution's sickness today. This is not the end of the fight. Corruption, mismanagement and inefficiency must be routed out of the World Bank -- you could say it needs to be more like an American bank than a World bank -- and I will continue to do all I can to see to it. The poor of the world deserve nothing less.

There's still the opportunity for redemption. Bush could push to the front of line a new president who could keep up the pressure. The WSJ suggested Paul Volker, who did a pretty decent job of investigating the UN's Oil-for-Food scandal, and a reader suggested a much more fun nominee: John Bolton.