Over the summer the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the IMF issued two draft issues papers for feedback on its planned evaluations of the IMF’s research and performance in the run-up to the financial crisis. The performance evaluation promises to be controversial as it “will look at the IMF’s technical work, as well as governance issues such as evenhandedness and the institution’s willingness and ability to convey difficult messages to large countries.” This is a coded reference to the fact that the IMF could do nothing about the failure of financial governance in the United States.