Opponents of the Iraq War think they have found a scalp with Paul Wolfowitz. The various media screeching, however, ignores the salient fact–a fact that only the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page editors took the time to look up. Voila la money quote: “He offered to recuse himself from any decision involving her career, and the matter was taken up by a three-person ethics committee of the 24-member bank board. That ethics committee concluded that the relationship constituted a de facto conflict of interest, and so Ms. Riza would have to leave the bank.” The officers of the World Bank have been aware of this “conflict” for a long time. Wolfowitz brought it to their attention before he was even on the job. So to express surprise at all this is disingenuous.

Finally–and perhaps the most telling bit of evidence of the motivation of many of those going after Wolfowitz–most of the attacks on Wolfowitz’s “ethics problem” begin not with the facts of the case (which are inconvenient to Wolfowitz’s opponents), but with a reminder that Wolfowitz was an architect of the Iraq War. Read a little further and you’ll usually find just how rabid an opponent of that war the author of the attack is.

You don’t have to believe me, though. Read the Journal’s piece and then compare its recounting of facts to the lack of facts in most anti- pieces. Or check out this quote from the New York Times–no nest of Wolfowitz groupies pounding keyboards over there: “At its core, the fight about whether Mr. Wolfowitz should stay on at the bank is a debate about Mr. Bush and his tumultuous relationship with the rest of the world.”

Judge for yourself.

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