The Wall Street Journal has an editorial comparing the situations of Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat who recommended his girlfriend, a former staffer, for a post as U.S. Attorney, and Paul Wolfowitz, a Bush administration official who had a relationship with a woman who worked at the World Bank when he was president of the bank. The Journal accuses Democrats and "their media allies" of a "double standard" because they hounded Mr. Wolfowitz from office yet seem to be giving Mr. Baucus a pass. But it seems as if the Journal itself is displaying something of a double standard. After all, they defended Mr. Wolfowitz. Yet the paper described Mr. Baucus's behavior as "nepotistic," sneers at the possibility that Mr. Baucus's girlfriend was hired on her own merit for another post in the Justice Department ("Of course she was," the editorial says sarcastically), and praises the couple for having "come to their senses" and deciding to withdraw her application for the U.S. Attorney post. It's ironical that the Wall Street Journal, of all places, can't conceive of the possibility that sometimes the most qualified woman for the job just happens to be romantically engaged with the boss -- especially given that the paper's one-time publisher, Karen Elliott House, was married to its chairman, Peter Kann, and given that the guy who took over after Ms. House and Mr. Kann left, Rupert Murdoch, has a wife, Wendi Deng Murdoch, who is the "chief strategist of MySpace China," a News Corp. property. Now, one can argue that it's one thing for personal ties to come into play in a company, even a publicly traded one, and another thing to have them come into play in a government office. But there's no argument in the Journal editorial that Mr. Baucus's girlfriend was unqualified or that she wouldn't have done a fine job as U.S. attorney. There's no explanation of why nepotism is good in the private sector but bad in government. There's just innuendo amounting to the argument that the Baucus girlfriend's personal life should have disqualified her from the U.S. Attorney job.
Baucus, Wolfowitz, and Double Standards
https://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2009/12/baucus-wolfowitz-and-double-standards
by Editor | Related Topics: Press receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list