Here's a useful website for Americans who would like to avert World War V

"Pundita! Please stick your head out of your cave once in a while! Eliot Spitzer wants to run for governor of NY. He wouldn't take the job of World Bank President even if he was offered it.
[Signed] Not Born Yesterday (in New York)"

"Why Eliot Spitzer, Pundita? Am going to link to your post [on Spitzer] but wondered what the reasoning was.
[Signed] David in Dorset, UK"

Dear NBY:

Believe you me, at this juncture the world needs Eliot Spitzer much more than the state of New York.

Dear David:

We confess to a moment's trepidation before clicking on the link you provided, after we saw that you're situated Across the Pond. We wondered whether it was one of those websites that exhorts readers to splash themselves with chicken blood and hop up and down outside IMF headquarters during the Spring meeting. The ritual terrifies the squirrels, you understand.

We are happy to report to our American readers that your website worldbankpresident.org is wonderfully civilized--and intelligent as well. Frankly it's a shame that the idea for the website didn't come from an American.

Of course it's vitally important that Americans take a profound interest in the choice for the next president of the Bank; a website dedicated to news about speculation regarding the choice provides a valuable service to Americans not to mention humankind at large.

So you want to know why Pundita likes Eliot Spitzer for the next Bank president....I imagine you've Googled Spitzer's name, but perhaps a close follower of the Bank's doings would also need to have followed the nightly news in America, while Spitzer was on a tear with Wall Street, in order to instantly grasp why he is the only rational choice for next President of the World Bank.

All right, Pundita will explain her reasoning in her next posting, "Why Eliot Spitzer is the Man for the Job."

For readers who can't stand the suspense kindly plow through the speech Sebastian Mallaby gave in October 2004 at the Council on Foreign Relations regarding his book on the World Bank. Take special note of the glaring contradiction between Mallaby's passing along the Bank's apology for corruption, and his acknowledgment that it's not possible to determine what part, if any, the Bank has ever played in any government's success stories.

Readers should also click on the link provided at your site, or go directly to the UN's Global Policy Forum to read the reprint of a Wall Street Journal editorial on the Bank. The editorial makes it clear that an independent audit of graft that Bank loans have financed will be conducted over the dead bodies of World Bank governors.

If one puts Mallaby's discussion of corruption together with the above point and tosses in Spitzer's time spent prosecuting labor racketeers, it shouldn't take a crystal ball to intuit the gist of Pundita's next post.

However, corruption is not the Bank's central problem. Because few people understand how the Bank works, for all the countless words written, explaining the problem in a few simple words will be a challenge. But Pundita will give it a try because to understand the Bank is to realize why Spitzer should be in top post at the Bank for at least a year.