Why do so many smart women get mixed up with the wrong men?

By all accounts, Shaha Ali Riza seems like an incredibly intelligent and successful women. Educated at the London School of Economics and done gone to Oxford for International Relations. Senior Communications Officer (and acting manager of external affairs) for the Middle East and North Africa Regional Office at the World Bank, she speaks at least five languages and is a noted supporter of women’s rights in the Arab world. Immediately before joining the World Bank, she worked at the National Endowment for Democracy, where she led the endowment’s Middle East programs. Yet, evidence indicates that in the affairs of the heart, she was not quite so proficient. This daughter of Libyan and Syrian parents fell for Paul Wolfowitz, the bad boy son of Polish Jewish immigrants. They first met in the early 1990s while each was married. By 2001, both had divorced, and though rumors flew, it wasn’t until 2005 that that “RizaWitz” was a sure item.

After Wolfie's job at the Defense department didn’t work out (for reasons I’d rather not get into), he got the President to give him a presidency of his own at the World Bank, which happened to be the office at which his girlfriend worked. How sweet--they could commute together.

But then, he pulled what had to be one of the most benign oversights of his career--he transfered Ms. Riza to another office and gave her a pretty raise of about $60,000. This made her the highest paid person at the State Department, topping Condoleezza Rice’s $157,000 taxable pittance. Perhaps it was Wolfowitz’s way of saying “Sorry for kicking you out of your job, honey. Believe me, I know how that feels." In cases like this, flowers and a Teddy-gram just don’t cut it.

But, evidently, there are no Cupids on the World Bank Ethics Committee. An ethics review concluded that Wolfowitz violated staff rules when he arranged the raise and transfer for Ms. Riza. Now Wolfowitz has finally resigned, but only after negotiating his departure like a wandering violinist in a cheap French restaurant, annoying the World Bank into tipping him before he agreed to go.

Of course, it was never really about the raise for Ms. Riza. Can we honestly be expected to believe that a group of European men would be shocked by someone showing his girlfriend special favors at the office? Perhaps they would have been more accomodating to pretty-young-mistress kind of scenario. The thought of two older, unmarried intellectuals getting it on must have come across as uncivilized.

Anyway, the European selected World Bank officials have never been fans of Wolfowitz or his boss, especially after President Bush forced Wolfowitz on them. It didn’t take long for them to use Wolfowitz’s relationship with Ms. Riza against him.

But she was good for him. She pushed hard at the World Bank to tie aid to democratic reforms and women’s rights. Maybe they shared the same ambitious views on reshaping the Middle East. Maybe Wolfowitz was truly driven to give his love the perfect gift: a democratic Middle East blossoming from a liberated Iraq. But for these star-crossed lovers, the outcome turned out to be much different.

The truth is that those in power and influence are subject to the same failings as the rest of us. Who out there hasn’t helped a loved one get a better job, raise or promotion? Who hasn’t shared a dream with another and deployed thousands of troops and billions of dollars in hope of watching it bloom?

But that's something for the story books. In a scenario that has become all too common for women today, she’s now stuck with an unemployed man who has lost his last two jobs and will likely be sitting around the house all day mad at the world (bank). Meanwhile, she’ll head off to work, trying to rebuild a career that was moving along quite nicely until HE showed up, thank you very much!

(Sigh) Why are all the good men taken?

The final insult in this latest scandal’s media storm was reserved for Ms Riza. This champion for women’s rights around the world has been relegated to the roll of simply “the girlfriend.”