"Kerik was a horrible choice to run the Department of Homeland Security, and not just because he was a sleazy finagler who took gifts from a mobster, assigned detectives to do research on his autobiography, ran a slush fund while he was in charge of the city's jails, washed out in a brief spell as interim interior minister of Iraq (and came home three months ahead of schedule), cheated on his wife and his mistress, and, a few years before all this, declared bankruptcy and (on a separate occasion) received an arrest warrant for failure to pay fees on his condo. Had Kerik been a paragon of probity, he still would have been a lousy pick because he was a high-school dropout who had never managed a large, complex organization. (Yes, the NYPD is large, with 40,000 police officers, but Kerik was never touted, even by his defenders at the time, for managerial prowess.)Remember: This remarkably inappropriate candidate was brought to you by George W. Bush.
The fact that Bush nominated Kerik -he reportedly liked Kerik's tough-talking, street-savvy, crime-fighting-bulldog 'character'- is a dismaying sign that the president doesn't understand the nature of the job. A mug who seems to have stepped out of a Damon Runyon story is not well-suited to be secretary of homeland security"
Thursday, January 06, 2005
LAST WORD ON KERIK
Via Slate