Wolfowitz: Of course it wasn't my fault!

Just like any common criminal, and any of Bush's neo-conservative cronies who's been caught or suspected of doing anything, Paul Wolfowitz says that his resignation as head of the World Bank due to, uh, questionable ethics, was not his fault.

Who does he blame?  The media (and something he refers to as an "overheated atmosphere" at the bank):

Speaking to the BBC World Service, Mr Wolfowitz denied that his own actions were the root cause of his departure.

"I'm pleased that finally the board did accept that I acted in good faith and acted ethically," he said.

"I accept the fact that by the time we got around to that, emotions here were so overheated that I don't think I could have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish for the people I really care about."

He denied suggestions that lingering personal antipathy against him had contributed to his decision to leave.

"I think it tells us more about the media than about the bank and I'll leave it at that.

"People were reacting to a whole string of inaccurate statements and by the time we got to anything approximating accuracy the passions were around the bend."

That last part about "passions [being] around the bend" is really grasping at straws.

Herman Wijffels, who headed the Wolfowitz investigation, has nothing good to say.  The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant interviewed Wijffels, including a quote in the article title ("Wijffels:  Paul Wolfowitz was a disastrous leader").  Here's what else Wijffels had to say (translated):

[de Volkskrant:]  Was more going on than just a salary increase for his girlfriend Shaha Riza?

[Wijffels:]  Absolutely. This man lead in a disastrous way. He made the bank totally unsafe. The existing trust changed to distrust because of that. On top of that, he did not develop a coherent strategy for the World Bank. I was talking to him about that. But he had little feeling for it.

That's just about as harsh as it gets.  Disastrous.  Totally unsafe.  No coherent strategy.  No inherent ability to do his job.

Sure sounds like someone else we know, doesn't it?

[H/T to dailykos diarist distributorcap, and to Think Progress, where you can watch the BBC's interview with Wolfowitz.]