His Female Companion
 

NPR has focused on Paul Wolfowitz of the World Bank lately - but all those scandals aside, I'm intrigued that the term "his female companion" keeps coming up in reference to Shaha Ali Riza, a woman he is romantically linked to - not girlfriend, mistress, partner - but consistently, "his female companion."

Thinking perhaps this is a new form of NPR politically correct speech, I plugged the term into Google and returned many more articles on Paul Wolfowitz - and a link to a wikipedia page on "beards" - are they implying he's gay - I wondered?

Anyway, I continue to be intrigued by the term and what it implies about their relationship and status. Is it becasue Shaha Ali Riza is too respected a person in the World Bank to diminish her as a "girlfriend" (i.e. defined only by her relationship to the man) - If so, is this term a symbol of arriving at professional success as an unmarried woman? or is it just becasue she's an older woman and "girlfriend" or "mistress" imply a sexual relationship which we'd rather not think about older people having?

I had a friend on LJ rant against the outlets using the world "girlfriend" saying it only applies to young people. I had never heard this and I responded saying "companion" seemed the stupidest of the options.

As for its general use, it is because that is generally the rules laid out in the major newspaper styleguides to not use girlfriend. Slate had an article about it a couple days ago.

Or perhaps a relationship we presume they are too old to be able to have.

Have you seen Wolfowitz? Could be that nobody wants to admit that he may actually be having sex. It would not be something you would want to get out there.

Press: "And who are you?"
Woman: "I'm his gir----uh, I am his faithful female companion. Sort of like Tonto. We fight crime together."

Wolfowitz is almost a year younger than my better half yet the thought of Wolfowitz involved with anyone makes me cringe. It's not his age for me, obviously. Wolfowitz is off the graph ooky-wise because he's a Republican war monger who licks his comb to comb his hair

Yeah, the comb licking.






How about "ladyfriend?"

How about "Wolfowitz's old lady." And he should revise his testimony accordingly: "Yeah, I hooked the old lady up with a job so she would quit her bitchin' about my hours."

I think he could pull it off.

If she really got her job just because she's (ew) sleeping with Wolfowitz (ew, ew, ew), then she's une grande horizontale (with either incredibly bad taste or the sexual discernment of a goat).

That's what is so horrible about this "scandal." She didn't. She was very well established as a major player in middle east development and an advocate for women's rights in the Middle East.

She was very much the reasonably high ranking professional at the World Bank before her significant other (a relationship begun after Wolfowitz and his first wife separated) happened to be appointed to run the place.

As soon as he was nominated Wolfowitz disclosed the relationship and recused himself from any involvement in personnel decisions related to her. It was the World Bank ethics committee that decided propriety required that she be trasnferred (against her will) to the State Deparment, given a raise, and a promotion (since she was being harmed through no fault of her own).

The ethics committee then instructed Wolfowitz to do it, despite his attempt to recuse himself.

The World Bank board of directors and ethics committee has already investigated this twice without finding any impropriety. This whole scandal is like some weird form of bureaucratic entrapment. The ethics committee requires Wolfowitz to give his girlfriend a raise and then he get slammed for it.

I despise Wolfowitz's policy views but it is really hard to see what he did wrong in this case.

But I feel really bad for Riza. She's a respected professional and since most people don't pay the slightest bit of attention to these stories beyond the headlines most everybody is going to assume she was a secreatary without typing skills, some kind of Fawn Hall.


(That said, there are some very valid, so far unexplained questions about possible influence at the DoD prior to Wolfowitz's departing the administration.)

Which is why I wondered if the subtext of the "his female companion" was somehow meant to imply "not a Bimbo"

The past two days the NPR reports on Wolfowitz now refer to Shaha Ali Riza as his "girlfriend," (actually without mention of name) which I confess gives the story a smarmier tone. I wonder what prompted the shift in language.

KPFK shifted to "Girlfriend," too.






I have to assume it was because of this thread.

She's been brought up in a few random classes lately. I feel bad, just knowing what little I do about her. There really is a big assumption that she didn't deserve the job. While I wouldn't have assumed she was a ho, I probably would have figured she got the job because of Wolfowitz, too.

I don't think I've really heard anyone saying she didn't deserve the job, just that he really should have removed himself from the process to avoid any appearance of favoritism/conflict of interest. It's just the smart thing to do. Which, of course, is probably too much to expect from Bush appointee.

Well, they were mainly snide remarks - not the kind of thought out intelligent sort of thing found here. It wasn't a discussion, exactly. Just, sort of "we were talking about the World Bank already" then someone says "Anyone hear the news lately?" then someone makes a snide remark "Guess you gotta sleep your way to the top." Or something to that effect.

I just figure that people don't really pay attention to the news, so they make assumptions on what little they hear. I know I don't have the time to.

I feel kinda sorry for her. She was just being moved out of the way of a job that would have raised conflict-of-interest concerns with Wolfowitz's job .... and she was given a hefty raise for putting up with a transfer that was necessited only by propriety's sake.


I don't think it's quite fair on Wolfowitz either ... but if the Seventh Circle of Hell isn't waiting for the formality of death to start stalking him, so much the better.

And, frankly, anyone who'd get involved with him romantically would best be advised to expect Satan at the door for dinner rather soon.

Oh! I have to wait to give ism some mojo for that one!

He's resigning.

Masterfully screwed by the bureaucrats. But he was stupid for not standing by his guns and insisting it be resolved by the ethics committee, preferably before he started the job.

I saw on Google news that they referred to her as his girlfriend.

I believe the context was "blah blah resignation because he gave his girlfriend blah blah position".

He was also apparently stupid for making a lot of enemies within the bank.

Well, that was pretty much unavoidable (even if he were a good manager which all indications are he is not) since his point of view was essentially:

You've all be complicit in a lot of fraud, graft, and generally criminality for the last few decades and I'm going to clean this place up.


He's mostly right (the World Bank is severely broken and creates economic incentives for despotic rule) but it isn't going to make many people very happy. That's the funniest part of the "with him in charge how can our borrowers and lenders have faith in our integrity" outrage.

I still don't like Wolfowitz and I don't think he was a good choice for the job. But this whole affair has been just a Machiavellian power struggle without much real underlying merit.

I'd always heard that it was best to avoid office romances.

This, and many other Universal Truths, may be discovered at your local unemployment office. Just ask!

They were a couple long before they worked for the same place.

Being referred to as "a female companion" would make me feel like I was someone's dog.

"My faithful female companion, Fifi the Poodle. Her parents call her Audra."

After the fate pretty much accompli in the last few days, KPFK has gone back to "companion" from "girfriend."

Seems you can't win. It's either the snarky of girlfriend, or the poodle of companion. Wolfowitz deserves no better, but future scandal victims should have better terminology applied to them.

I agree. I like 'accomplice'.

Have you met my accomplice? We just moved in together!

May I bring my accomplice along as a guest?

Oh, the things my accomplice and I accomplish in the sack.

Partners in crime! In love! In bed! In espionage!

Yeah, I'm really leaning towards accomplice.

I'm still a fan of "paramour" or even "inamorata".

That is a good one, and would work well in this context since she could be considered "a woman who cohabits with an important man."

Paramours and accomplices. Both have the flair of the positive and negative. Me likey.

Hahaha... I like to think of myself as an accomplice.

"Accomplice" is so crime scene.

Precisely.

I've now got the Bond theme playing on the Brain Player.