Rogoff, Wolfowitz, and Blue Ribbons

Ken

Rogoff has been lauded with many accolades in his time. But this

is surely one of the greatest:

Le Foreign Policy n’a pas jugé utile de préciser que

ce "mémorandum" était un faux, imaginé et réalisé

par Kenneth Rogoff, économiste et professeur à Harvard, qui

s’est glissé dans la peau de Paul Wolfowitz le temps de cet exercice

de style. Le Monde.fr s’est laissé abuser par le canular, trop pressé

de publier un article sur l’étonnante note du chef de la Banque mondiale.

I’m not sure how to translate this: I’m still struggling with the mental image

of Rogoff "glisse dans la peau de Paul Wolfowitz". Maybe Foreign Policy

itself has the best translation:

simply, "oops".

By the way, Rogoff wasn’t making up this part of his fake

memo:

Some of you may wonder how I can remain at the Bank when so many staff are

openly seeking my dismissal. (Thank goodness most of you have tired of wearing

those silly blue protest ribbons.)

As Portfolio’s Liz Gunnison is reporting,

the blue-ribbon phenomenon is very real.

The blue ribbons first started appearing on lapels around the World Bank’s

H Street headquarters in Washington about 10 days ago. No word yet on how

widely the trend has spread among other offices, or whether there is particular

significance to the color blue.

But the spokesperson says that in the capital, World Bank staffers are making

trips out to craft stores in the suburbs because everyplace in the District

is selling out of blue ribbon.

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