Retired White House Pastry Chef Could Provide the Answer
A group that monitors and arbitrates the correct usage of English has agreed to study and make recommendations about how best to describe the female colleague of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz.
Shaha Riza has been variously described in news reports as Wolfowitz’s girl friend, live-in companion, roommate, soul mate, alter ego, concubine, adviser, ethics coach, housekeeper, Svengali, Democratic spy, main squeeze, graduate student slave, Karl Rove look-alike, scullery maid, Iraq war strategist and omnipotence coach, among other things.
Wolfowitz has come under intense pressure to step down as World Bank president because of reports that he helped Riza get a State Department job that paid $193,590 and earlier recommended her for an Iraq war contract.
“We welcome this assignment and will give it our immediate attention,” said Edwin LeFevre, president of the National Association of Sticklers for the Precise Use of English.
“Like everyone else I am quite vexed and confused about what, precisely, is the nature of the relationship between Ms. Riza and Mr. Wolfowitz. How can anyone unravel the complexities and improprieties of this kerfuffle without knowing what goes on behind closed doors with them?”
LeFevre declined to reveal who had engaged NASPUA to probe semantics involving Wolfowitz and Riza. “Let us just posit that our employers have a consummate quantity of power and sufficient funds to obtain meaningful results,” he said.
LeFevre said that none of the descriptions of Ms. Riza’s relationship to Wolfowitz were “off the table, so to speak” and that his group “would follow the semantic trails wherever Webster, Bartlett and Shakespeare lead us, even if we have to use the ‘H’ word, or, more precisely, the ‘P’ word to accurately describe what is going on.”
While NASPUA lacks subpoena power, LeFevre said the group planned to speak with various White House operatives, including Karl Rove, and would interview former Bush Administration officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Colin Powell, Michael Brown and retired White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier.
LeFevre said NASPUA was eager to speak to Mesnier because “the kitchen staff are the first to know everything and their information is often the most accurate.”