1115.org

It looks like our European allies have just finished issuing a pretty bald ultimatum to George Bush: either Paul Wolfowitz resigns from the World Bank now, or we push him out. And if you force us to push him out, you don’t get to pick his successor.

It has, of course, been clear for a good long while, to anyone who’s been paying attention with even half her mind, that the President of the United States is no longer the leader of the free world. But it’s one thing for everyone to know it. It’s quite another to have your nose publicly rubbed in it.

And that’s the choice Bush has been given. Cut him loose, or lose an enormous amount of face.

The White House has always been strong on loyalty. But when it comes to loyalty or saving face, they’ve somehow never had much trouble deciding that they’d much rather save face instead. And that was in the bad old days, when they still had some face they could afford to lose. Not any more. So presumably it is a foregone conclusion that we’ll be hearing an angry resignation statement from Wolfie. (I would give anything to hear him say he’s resigning to spend more time with his “family”. The two of them do probably need some quality time together, at this point. Somehow, I’m convinced the only topic of conversation for a while will be whose fault everything is. Riza’s for demanding the moon, and thinking they could actually get away with it. Or Wolfie’s for being stupid enough to go along.)

But the prospect of a Wolfowitz resignation still has to be dressed up in a “presumably”. Because with this administration, it’s really not safe to assume they are capable of recognizing that they’ve just been made an offer they can’t refuse.

For that reason, I’m still not willing to bet real money that Wolfie will actually resign.

The question being put to President Bush seems to be:

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?

But this is the guy who winks at queens. And let’s remember that the next verse of Lewis Carroll’s poem does end with:

Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.