HYPOCRISY FROM THE WORLD BANK:

In a statement worthy of the French diplomat he apparently aspires to become, World Bank President James Wolfensohn concluded his meeting with the Iraqi Governing Council with the disdainful remark that “a constitution and an elected government would constitute a recognized government, but what do we do in the meantime?”

Whoaaa there, Daddy Warbucks! Hold the sauterne and the foie gras!

I don’t recall that Saddam’s regime was elected. Or that it governed by a constitution. Yet that terror-state was recognized as legitimate by the world’s diplomats and international bankers. Every slithering, interest-bearing one of them.

And now Iraq’s interim Governing Council doesn’t deserve the level of recognition accorded Saddam Hussein?

Saddam seized power in a coup, slaughtered his opponents, started successive wars of aggression, pursued weapons of mass destruction and never held a single honest election. But he was just fine with foreign ministries, the United Nations and world financial institutions.

Yet Iraq’s representative Governing Council lacks legitimacy as it seeks to build democracy? And Iraq doesn’t qualify for reconstruction loans?

This is a double standard of such a disgraceful magnitude that the only appropriate adjective is “European.”

Wolfensohn is American (though I think he’s a naturalized citizen of Australian extraction). And I’m not sure a Eurocrat would say that particular stupid thing.

Come to think of it, those Eurocrats aren’t exactly elected, are they?

Meanwhile, Reporters Sans Frontieres is learning that the U.N.’s hostility to freedom isn’t just an annoyance to the United States.