LAST WORD ON KERIK

Via Slate

"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.)

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"

Remember: This remarkably inappropriate candidate was brought to you by George W. Bush.