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"I remember George Shultz," whom he once worked for, "was once asked how he would compare management in the private sector, public sector, and academics," Mr. Wolfowitz says. "In the private sector you better be careful what you ask for because people are going to go out and do it. . . . The government, you don't have to worry about that. You tell people do something and you check back two months later and nothing's happened. But in the academic world, you tell people to do something and they look at you strangely and they say, 'Who the heck do you think you are giving us orders?'"
-- Paul A. Gigot, "Dr. Wolfowitz, I Presume" in The Wall Street Journal
Now, how many remember Paul Wolfowitz, the engineer of power-positioning America in the post-Cold War world, and, yes, a leading proponent for ousting Saddam Hussein from power?
Monk was pleasantly surprised to catch this Gigot interview, as Wolfowitz had certainly fallen from his own radar - so last year! Taking up his new position as head of the World Bank, Mr. Wolfowitz gives voice to the less controversial side of his idealism, in hoping to improve living conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, a region of the world that has continued to be the global basketcase after hundreds of billions of dollars in aid have been spent there over the past thirty years:
"His mission--since he's been crazy enough to accept it--is to make the world's largest development bank believe once again that it really can help the poor. It certainly would be one of history's larger ironies if the man so reviled by the political left ended up helping more people than all of those who spend their lives attending U.N. conferences."
Alas, it is likely that we will be only less successful in this than we have been in hellish Iraq...
xXx
"I remember George Shultz," whom he once worked for, "was once asked how he would compare management in the private sector, public sector, and academics," Mr. Wolfowitz says. "In the private sector you better be careful what you ask for because people are going to go out and do it. . . . The government, you don't have to worry about that. You tell people do something and you check back two months later and nothing's happened. But in the academic world, you tell people to do something and they look at you strangely and they say, 'Who the heck do you think you are giving us orders?'"
-- Paul A. Gigot, "Dr. Wolfowitz, I Presume" in The Wall Street Journal
Now, how many remember Paul Wolfowitz, the engineer of power-positioning America in the post-Cold War world, and, yes, a leading proponent for ousting Saddam Hussein from power?
Monk was pleasantly surprised to catch this Gigot interview, as Wolfowitz had certainly fallen from his own radar - so last year! Taking up his new position as head of the World Bank, Mr. Wolfowitz gives voice to the less controversial side of his idealism, in hoping to improve living conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, a region of the world that has continued to be the global basketcase after hundreds of billions of dollars in aid have been spent there over the past thirty years:
"His mission--since he's been crazy enough to accept it--is to make the world's largest development bank believe once again that it really can help the poor. It certainly would be one of history's larger ironies if the man so reviled by the political left ended up helping more people than all of those who spend their lives attending U.N. conferences."
Alas, it is likely that we will be only less successful in this than we have been in hellish Iraq...
