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.