is my friend, and one of the most decent, upright people it has ever been my privilege to know. Michael Rubin is quite correct when he says that today’s Wall Street Journal editorial is must reading for those following the low campaign to oust him from presidency of the World Bank.

The libel making the rounds is that Paul secretly used his influence to help his girlfriend, who was already at the World Bank when he came on board, score a big raise. The truth is that he tried to remove himself from any consideration of her circumstances citing conflict of interest concerns, and that he was pushed into intervening only after that, when bank officials pressed him to get involved, citing the unfairness to her of the conflict caused by his nomination to the bank presidency.

If it were up to me, there would be no World Bank. But if we’re going to have one, we should be grateful that Paul Wolfowitz is running it, rooting out corruption and trying to change the culture so that helping the poor, rather than pushing loans out the door, is the criterion by which it is judged. There are entrenched interests who do not like his anti-corruption campaign, and that, rather than his girlfriend, is what this controversy is about.