UPDATE: Greetings to World Bank employees, who seem to have been trickling in for the last few hours. Thank you for stopping by. Feel free to comment, if you wish.

Paul Wolfowitz, who has been assailed for several months for breaking US laws and World Bank regulations by transferring his side dish to the State Department in order to give her a sweet deal, and hooking her up with a huge pay raise, keeps insisting that he’s done nothing wrong.

One of the original neoZionists that created the PNAC in response to Israel’s Clean Break implementation of the Yinon Strategy, Mr Wolfowitz was uniquely placed as Director for Policy Planning at the DoD to enable Douglas Feith’s faking intelligence to provide reasons for attacking Iraq that would sound almost legit.

Excuse me, Mr Feith keeps insisting that he did not – not, I tell you - fake intelligence, but rather he “provided alternative views of the intelligence” extant at the time. So, for the sake of humoring a second rate mind, let’s go with that lie, shall we? After all, if a notorious drunk takes a wad of cash from a mysterious stranger with a strong American accent, and then avers while reading the sheet of paper accompanying the cash that – oh yes! Yes, of course! Mohammed Atta met with Saddam Hussein in the Pozsvedita bistro in Prague, then we must consider this as momentous information, even if every biped in all the intelligence agencies in the world insist it never happened, and that the source (Curveball) is too drunk to stand up without a wall to lean on.

As a reward for his service in helping to invent a casus belli, Mr Bu$h obtained the Presidency of the World Bank for Mr Wolfowitz, who almost immediately sent his honey pot over to State so that she could keep an eye on that Department.

After numerous complaints about Mr Wolfowitz, employees of the Bank managed to get an ethics investigation started. Considering his origin as a member of the Bu$h malAdministration, no one was especially surprised to learn the ethics committee published a report carefully detailing the full extent of his transgressions. And considering his origins as a loyal Bu$hie, no one was surprised to learn that he made “anti-corruption” a signature theme of his tie at the World Bank, even as he was getting his mistress a special deal at State, with a tax-free salary greater than that of the Secretary of State and a free-ranging security clearance that allowed her entrance to any office within State without an escort, a perk unheard of for a foreigner.

The ethics committee insisted that Shaha Ali Riza had to leave the World Bank since she was shtupping the President of the Bank, and therefore Ms Riza ended up with her sweetheart deal at State. It should be noted that the few career diplomats and professional staffers at State that still have any influence have been screaming quietly about her presence.

Mr Wolkowitz is going to lave the World Bank. Everyone acknowledges this. There are only two sticking points: the right to install the next President and Mr Wolfowitz’s wallet.

It will surprise no one that Mr Bu$h has insisted that he must have the right to install Mr Wolfowitz’s replacement. The Commander Guy has better naming rights than a multinational corporation looking over a sports stadium. There was a lot of resistance at first, but it seems that the Germans, the last holdouts, have finally caved in. (“Anything! Anything! Just make this man disappear!”)

This is a bad decision by the European members and the Board of Directors. By failing to insist that the man be 86ed now, they’re just setting themselves up for a replacement even more predatory and ethically malignant than Mr Wolfowitz.

But Mr Wolfowitz won’t leave until some time next month. No matter what the disgrace, no matter how it tarnishes the image of the Bank, he’s hanging on because his contract calls for a $400,000 bonus in June.

Just like everyone else associated with the Bu$h malAdministration, it’s always about how much money they can steal.

UPDATE, 130PM, Eastern time: ABC's The Blotter is reporting that a deal has been struck allowing Mr Wolfowitz to resign in a manner that will "save face" for him. Knowledgegable and cynical Bu$hCo observers might take that to mean they may have decided to pay him his $400,000 just to get rid of him. Good money, bad money, and all that.