Kerik Indictment Cuts At Core Rationale Of Rudy Candidacy

[jAZ]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/11/cnns_jack_caffe_1.php

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Kerik Indictment Cuts At Core Rationale Of Rudy Candidacy
November 9, 2007 -- 4:21 PM EST // //

In light of the questions I asked yesterday about what today's coverage of the indictment of Bernie Kerik would be like, I took a quick lap through the news stories and punditry about Kerik and was actually surprised: A lot of it was pretty on point in some ways.

The New York Times devoted a whole piece to the political problem Kerik has become for Rudy, prominently mentioning that Rudy had pushed Kerik as Homeland Security chief high in the piece. The Associated Press had a similar piece focused on the same thing. CNN's analysts were pretty tough on Rudy: Gloria Borger said that it "calls into question his judgment," and even Wolf Blitzer got a little bit feisty, pointing out that it was kind of problematic that Rudy had pushed Kerik as DHS chief.


But for all that, a critical, fundamental point is still being missed in the commentary on this story.


The Kerik indictment isn't merely news because it calls into question Rudy's judgment or vetting skills on one appointment or even on his recommending him for DHS. Rather, its real importance lies in the fact that it undercuts the core rationale of his entire candidacy. It perfectly captures the fraudulent nature of Rudy's entire Presidential quest.


Rudy's argument to voters is simple: He's the candidate best equipped to protect us from what he likes to call the "terrorists' war on us." Rudy generally offers two things as evidence for this: The first is that as Mayor he shouldered the burden of maintaining the "safety and security of 8 million people," as says. That Rudy would have put Kerik in charge of protecting those 8 million people puts this rationale on shaky ground. But Kerik was commissioner for a brief period, crime in New York did fall dramatically during Rudy's tenure. So Kerik doesn't necessarily wipe away this piece of Rudy's rationale.


The second piece of Rudy's argument is that as Mayor of New York on 9/11 he alone understands just how frightful the terrorist menace really is and hence would be most effective in countering it. This is Rudy's central message: I alone am the best equipped to keep the country safe from Islamofascisterror. It hardly needs to be pointed out that the post of Homeland Security chief is kind of important when it comes to doing this. Despite this, Rudy is the primary reason that a cartoonish joke like Kerik was ever considered for the all-important post of defending the nation in the first place. Remember, Rudy privately vouched for Kerik to Bush.


Pundits are awfully quick to take the most minor gaffe committed by Dems and use it as a cudgel to beat their central rationale to death. John Edwards got a $400 haircut? That proves his poverty candidacy is a ruse. Al Gore uses lots of electricity? Hah -- his environmental crusade's a sham. And so on.


Your pundits are much more circumspect when it comes to Republicans. But in the case of Rudy and Kerik you have something incomparably worse: The candidate who is telling us that he will best defend us from terrorism cavalierly pushed a crooked crony, a complete buffoon, for one of the positions that is most central to the accomplishment of that goal. That is why the Kerik story is important and strikes what should be a lethal blow to Rudy's candidacy. And it would be cool to hear pundits close the circle and discuss this in terms just as stark as these.

[jAZ]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/us/politics/03kerik.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

If the rise of Bernard B. Kerik under the mentorship of Rudolph W. Giuliani was meteoric, the speed of his fall was breathtaking.

In December 2004, President Bush nominated Mr. Kerik, a former New York police commissioner, to head the federal Department of Homeland Security. Seven days later, Mr. Kerik withdrew as a nominee.

A cascade of questions followed about his judgment as a public official, not least that he had inappropriately lobbied city officials on behalf of Interstate Industrial, a construction firm suspected of links to organized crime. Mr. Giuliani defended Mr. Kerik, a friend and business partner, whom he had recommended to the Bush administration. But he also tried to shield himself from accusations that he had ignored Mr. Kerik’s failings.

“I was not informed of it,” Mr. Giuliani said then, when asked if he had been warned about Mr. Kerik’s relationship with Interstate before appointing him to the police post in 2000.

Mr. Giuliani amended that statement last year in testimony to a state grand jury. He acknowledged that the city investigations commissioner, Edward J. Kuriansky, had told him that he had been briefed at least once. The former mayor said, though, that neither he nor any of his aides could recall being briefed about Mr. Kerik’s involvement with the company.

But a review of Mr. Kuriansky’s diaries, and investigators’ notes from a 2004 interview with him, now indicate that such a session indeed took place. What is more, Mr. Kuriansky also recalled briefing one of Mr. Giuliani’s closest aides, Dennison Young Jr., about Mr. Kerik’s entanglements with the company just days before the police appointment, according to the diaries he compiled at the time and his later recollection to the investigators.
Does this sound like anyone we know?
The additional evidence raises questions not only about the precision of Mr. Giuliani’s recollection, but also about how a man who proclaims his ability to pick leaders came to overlook a jumble of disturbing information about Mr. Kerik, even as he pushed him for two crucial government positions.

“Rudy can fall for people big time, and sometimes qualifications are secondary to loyalty,” said Fran Reiter, a former Giuliani deputy mayor who now supports Hillary Clinton. “If he gets it in his head he trusts you, he is extremely loyal.”

Mr. Giuliani has routinely met loyalty with loyalty, standing by political allies and friends in their darkest hours. Giuliani Partners, for example, his consulting firm, employs a high school friend, Msgr. Alan Placa, despite allegations that he sexually molested young men years ago.

[jAZ]

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[jAZ]

Sounds like the Bush Administration might have made it's own "various false and misleading statements about" the reason's for pulling Kerik's nomination.

What a mess.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004704.php

Indictment Suggests White House Discussed Kerik Mob Ties before He Withdrew Nomination

By Paul Kiel - November 14, 2007, 4:15PM
Finally, evidence suggesting that the White House knew that Bernie Kerik had much more than a nanny problem.

It took only a week for President Bush's nomination of Kerik to replace Tom Ridge as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to fall apart. And it's abruptness -- and the reason given -- has always been cause for suspicion.

On December 2, 2004, President Bush announced that his pick to replace Tom Ridge as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security was Bernard Kerik. On December 10th, a Friday, at 8:30 p.m., Kerik suddenly withdrew his nomination, explaining in a statement that he'd discovered that his former housekeeper and nanny might not be a legal immigrant and that he hadn't paid taxes on her. It was the sole reason given for his withdrawal, both in his statement and in subsequent comments by White House officials.

But Kerik's indictment last Thursday indicates that the White House was dealing with bigger problems: Kerik's ties to the mob.

The centerpiece of the indictment was Kerik's acceptance, from 1999 through 2000, of $255,000 worth of apartment renovations (including a marble rotunda) from executives with Interstate Industrial Corporation, a company with ties to the Gambino crime family. The feds say that Kerik, who was NYC corrections commissioner and then police commissioner during the time in question, worked on Interstate's behalf in return for the money, work that included attempting to convince city investigators that the company was free of mob ties so that it could get city contracts.

Unfortunately for Kerik, the secret of his ties to Interstate began to unravel just about the time of his nomination. On December 2nd, the same day that Bush announced Kerik was his pick, The New York Daily News, which had been digging for six weeks on Kerik's ties to Interstate, sent him a list of questions about those ties.

On December 5th, the indictment alleges, Kerik "made various false and misleading statements about his relationship with [Interstate and it's top executives]" in an email to a White House official (who remains unnamed). It was one of several allegedly false and misleading statements that Keik is charged in the indictment with making to White House officials. However, unlike the other false statements, which appear from the indictment to involves sins of omission -- like failure to disclose -- the language of the indictment suggests that the December 5th email was an affirmative misrepresentation. In other words, in the thick of the vetting process, the White House was asking Kerik about his ties to Interstate.

Five days later, he announced that he'd uncovered his nanny problem. Two days after that, on December 12th, the Daily News first reported that Kerik's brother and best friend had been hired by Interstate -- on Kerik's recommendation. Kerik had never responded to the list of questions, the paper reported.

Of course, Kerik's ties to Interstate were just one of a number of transgressions that were eventually uncovered (Interstate's $255,000 in payments for his apartment weren't uncovered until much later), though nothing else has proven as serious. At the time, however, anonymous White House officials told The New York Times that the nanny problem had clinched his need to withdraw, that "it would be impossible for him to win confirmation for a post that supervises enforcement of the nation's immigration laws if he had had immigration problems in his own household." At a White House press briefing, then-spokesman Scott McClellan would only say "It was a decision he came to. And as far as we're concerned, we respect his decision, and this matter has been now put to rest."

Kerik's attorney made the issue even clearer, telling the Times that "the decision to step down was not made because of any outside information gathered by news organizations or federal background checks, but rather by Mr. Kerik himself as he filled out application papers."