The World Bank's Choice: Love Wolfowitz, or Hate Freedom

Seemed plausible, but his spokeswoman, Risa Heller, said the cookies must have been left over from a book party at the restaurant in late January or early February. The cookies were given out at the party.

"We were positively sure that they were positively out," she said. "We were wrong."

No Subpoena for Rice

Don't look for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this week. Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is still not satisfied with her answers on WMD and other matters -- despite another lengthy memo from her yesterday. But no subpoena vote today, he wrote Rice late yesterday, saying he's rescheduled that vote for next week. He's thinking maybe she can swing by sans subpoena sometime before Memorial Day. Well, theoretically, you could have a worse fortune.

IRS Tips for the Corrupt

Filed your taxes on time? Did you declare everything you should have? Remember, as the IRS instructions say, "if you receive a bribe, include it in your income." Also, "if you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner."

See instructions on estimating fair market value of stolen goods . . .

Dailey Named Counterterrorism Coordinator

Catching up . . . the White House has tapped Lt. Gen. Dell L. Dailey, long a major player in the "black" world of special operations, to be the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism. He directed the special-ops effort in the Afghan war and was in charge of the SOCOM, the special operations command in Tampa.

Dailey joins a growing number of former military folks now in intelligence operations -- such as CIA chief Michael Hayden and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell.

In other moves, the White House has withdrawn two Environmental Protection Agency nominations -- Alex A. Beehler to be inspector general and William Ludwig Wehrum Jr. to be assistant administrator for air and radiation -- who were renominated in January. Both appeared headed for certain rejection by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee after a planned bludgeoning by committee Democrats at a hearing set for this week.

Enviros had objected to Wehrum, who had been acting assistant administrator for the past year, as being a principal architect of the much-criticized Bush efforts to weaken controls on polluting power plants. Enviros also opposed Beehler, assistant deputy undersecretary for environment, safety, and occupational health, arguing that he had worked to exempt the Pentagon from certain pollution controls.

Correction

In the item Monday on rapper 50 Cent's appearance at an AIDS awareness rally, he stopped off in Luanda, Angola, not Rwanda. That's another country.