Hey, don't you worry about Robert Zoellick! He may be another arrogant Bush administration insider of Jewish descent, but at least he is not one of those discredited neo-conservatives. Oh, no, he's just a discredited "Vulcan":
The Vulcans were led by Condoleezza Rice and included Richard Armitage, Robert Blackwill, Stephen Hadley, Richard Perle, Dov Zakheim, Robert Zoellick and Paul Wolfowitz.He's an advisor to the Enron board, a member of two mysterious groups - the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission - and one of a select few invited to the annual Bilderberg Group conference.
He was also a signatory to the January 26, 1998 letter drafted by the Project for the New American Century, calling for the removal of Saddam. But he's NOT a neocon, m'kay?
He is said to be a difficult, cantankerous man who champions free trade only insofar as it serves US national interests. He wrote this in a letter to Bush a full year and a half before 9/11:
"[T]here is still evil in the world — people who hate America and the ideas for which it stands."But he's NOT one of them crazy neocon ideologues, so that's OK.
Zoellick resigned as Rice's deputy in July to take a position with the Bush machine's favourite bankers, Goldman Sachs:
In returning to government, he continues the trend of the company's executives moving into public service under the Bush Administration.It's not just tight, it's big. Even former Reserve Bank of Australia governor Ian Macfarlane became a Goldman Sachs board member. But let's get back to our main story...
Before becoming Treasury Secretary last year, Mr Paulson was the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; another former Goldman official, Joshua Bolten, is the White House chief of staff.
"It's a very tight network, this Goldman one," a European official said.
Zoellick's nomination is being wildly applauded in the press, but not everyone is ecstatic:
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said, "I certainly respect very much Mr. Zoellick," but declined further comment...Hey, what's to understand about developing countries? They exist purely to be exploited, as we all know. USA NUMBER ONE!!! WHOO HOO!!!
Charad D. Wadhva, professor emeritus at the Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi think tank, questions whether Zoellick is right for the World Bank job.
"Professionally, he's competent but I'm not so sure about his background in developing economies or in helping developing countries," Wadhva said. "He may have to learn a lot to understand the needs of the developing countries."
Despite such stifled dissent, and barring any startling new revelations, Zoellick will sail through his nomination process. The Democrats are already singing his praises. And the European powers-that-be will say nothing, because they know the World Bank is Washington's baby (they get to control the IMF).
This is the way the world works. These are the people who decide our global destiny.
NB: Zoellick was replaced at State by Bush's "intelligence czar", Juan Negroponte, leaving many people scratching their heads. Why did the nation's top intelligence boss quit to become Condi's #2? We may never know, but a few questions during the nomination process would not go astray. Was Negroponte's move part of a desperate cleanup operation?
[NOTE: I updated this post after earlier confusing Zoellick with another top Rice adviser, Phillip Zelikow. So much for "burying the lede"! D'oh!]
UPDATE: I made up for my mistake of confusing condi's z-men with a lengthy post about Zelikow here.
