‘Advise and Consent’: Banking on the World’s Trust

Greetings, fellow moneymen! Today is a significant day on the global monetary front…with President Bush’s announcement that he was putting forth Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz’s name as his choice to head the World Bank. By “putting forth his name”, I mean to say, President Bush is pushing for this Wolfowitz fellow to preside over the banking conglomerate, and not merely his “name”. That device is a staple of quality writing, rest assured.
I trust the president’s judgment on this matter, and, more significantly, I approve of his choice. I myself once had the privilege of meeting Paul Wolfowitz eighteen months ago, after he presented a lecture at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government on the Bush Administration’s decision to invade Iraq and topple that monstrous Saddam Hussein figure. There were a number of liberals in the audience that insisted on asking him many pointed questions regarding ill-advised intelligence briefings and bad military judgments, but he deftly brushed aside their trivial concerns with his proclamations that “Evil is as evil does, and Saddam Hussein was and is an evil man.” That shut them up, I’ll tell you. In Latin, I would say, this is a case of ad reducto absurdum, or, better yet, corpus christi.
But I digress. After his lecture, I made my way to the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts on Eliot Street to sample one of their refreshing Caramel Swirl Lattes, a splendid coffee drink the likes of which I haven’t seen outside of Cambridge. As I stood before the counter, clutching this caffeinated treasure in my hands, the clerk began to dole out my change and looked up behind me. I turned, and there he was. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz himself. The architect of the war with Iraq, and Richard Perle’s chief partner in Middle Eastern crimesolving. I smiled at him as he made his way to the counter, and, after tugging delicately at the tie around my neck, I noticed I had inadvertently coated my cravat in the gentle white foam of the Latte in my hands.
Rather sheepishly, I addressed him: “Great speech tonight, Mr. Wolfowitz. Really, truly excellent. Remarkable.” He, in turn, smiled back at me, and motioned towards the clerk behind the counter. “Don’t forget your change, sir,” he then said to me, for, in the midst of my excitement at being in the presence of such a mastermind of war and Western imperialism, I had neglected to gather the various coins that the Dunkin’ Donuts clerk had been holding out for me to collect.
What an attention to fiscal detail this Wolfowitz fellow had that night! It is for this reason, largely, that I am confident that he will be able to responsibly manage and monitor the world’s most significant moneylender and debt creditor. Kudos to you, fine sir, and those that had the courage to nominate you!