what’s the score?

In America, everyone is obsessed with November 2008, because it’s being conceived and produced by TV news and entertainment executives as the world’s longest-running political soap opera, and it promises to have us oohing and aahing, and to really get our juices going.

While we’re sucking at that tit, however, the rest of the world is already maneuvering for position in the post-Bush era, as the NYT makes plain in “Deal Is Offered for Chief’s Exit at World Bank“:

What’s the “deal”? That Wolfowitz must get the boot if the U.S. wants to keep the right to select the Bank’s president. Sounds like a threat to me!

Here’s where the various international players stand:

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany favors Mr. Wolfowitz’s resignation, people familiar with her thinking say, but is also eager to avoid a confrontation with Mr. Bush. But as chief of the European Union, she is said to feel obliged to reflect European views, put forth in the European Parliament’s call last month for Mr. Wolfowitz to resign.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, due to step down as soon as this summer, has stood by Mr. Bush, but his presumed successor, Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, has tangled with Mr. Wolfowitz on some bank policies.

European officials say that the Netherlands and the Nordic countries have been most critical of Mr. Wolfowitz.

Bank officials say that, as of now, only the United States, Japan and Canada would vote in favor of Mr. Wolfowitz. They represent less than 30 percent of the voting shares. Most directors are said to be willing to vote against Mr. Wolfowitz, but some countries, mainly in Africa, are said to be wavering.

In the media and the blogosphere, because Wolfowitz is the big bad villain who brought us Iraq, this is playing mostly as a feel-good story for the Not in Our Name coalition of Bush haters, neocon-bashers, and peace-or-else!(TM) partisans.

It has much broader implications, though. So pay attention.