Posted on 12/14/2004 8:01:46 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
President Bush hoped to limit the political damage from the nomination of Bernard B. Kerik by cutting him loose as soon as he confessed he had not paid taxes for a Mexican nanny who apparently had been in the country illegally. Instead, questions about Bush's judgment have escalated because of a cascade of damaging details about Kerik's business and personal lives that White House vetters either missed or ignored...
...White House officials said they knew about many of the issues before the nomination but did not deem them disqualifying. In part, they were relying on the support of New York's two Democratic senators, Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both of whom had issued statements praising Kerik after the announcement. The White House also was banking on the notion that Kerik had survived the rough-and-tumble New York political world, including its bare-knuckled tabloid press, and figured that no senator would dare question Kerik on his extramarital activities at a confirmation hearing.
One senior official said even Kerik's failure to pay employment taxes for the nanny would not have been enough to pull the nomination because he could have owned up to the error and paid the back taxes. But the official said the idea of employing an undocumented immigrant was, in the end, untenable for the Cabinet secretary in charge of immigration and borders.
In hindsight, according to people close to the White House, it appeared Bush or his aides allowed their affection for Kerik to cloud their judgment. Kerik traveled extensively on behalf of Bush's reelection campaign and became a popular figure within the president's circle. His hero status from the Sept. 11 attacks and his colorful personality, Bush advisers figured, would help inoculate Kerik from questions about his past...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Googling Mike Allen and Peter Baker and Form 180 shows no results.
We have immigration laws and borders?
Praise from those two were the biggest red flags of all
Gotta love that Post.
Democrats were chomping at the bit to get this creep in front
of a Senate Committee and really embarass GWB"S administration.
Shumer and Clinton were most interested in the pork Kerik would bring home.
I scratch my head at all the fuss.
I don't want a girl scout in charge of homeland security.
I want a Hell's Angel with a record who loves his mom.
God help this country if the liberals ever come back from Canada.
I know the man. He's not.
It always amazes me how quickly people are to draw conclusions and throw bombs from behind the anonymity of the Internet. I hope the candy @ss POL you end up with as your Secretary of DHS is more to your liking.
"I hope the candy @ss POL you end up with as your Secretary of DHS is more to your liking."
Bring back Frank Rizzo! No twig boys for Homeland top cop!
The real embarrassment here should be Giuliani's. He just blew his first "presidential" decision by making this recommendation without properly coaching his protege how to handle the Demafiosi in Washington.
Did you want Bill Clinton for president? He was a bad guy also.
The Defeated Liberal Media (DLM) is attacking President Bush on the Kerik vetting process? Give me a break, do they expect the President to personally investigate the personal life of every person he hires?
The hate of the DLM toward President Bush is incredible. They want to blame him for every damn thing. Anyway the DLM is too stupid to realize that the vast majority of the American people are not going to blame the President for this Kerik issue. The moronic DLM blamed him for every bad thing under the sun for the last four years, and he still crush them and won his re-election, and he will keep crushing them again and again and again...
How well do you know him? Ever visited that apartment?
Someone who doesn't accept bribes, doesn't hire illegals, does pay taxes on their employees, doesn't cheat on his wife and mistresses is nothing more than a girl scout in your mind? What is George Bush then? A girl scout because he seems to be an honest law-abiding type. Ronald Reagan? Another girl scout?
No, no, Reagan was found guilty at the Iran-Contra hearings, and Bush flew planes by remote control into the WTC, so THEY'RE scumbags. /sarcasm
You are the first person I've seen on all these many threads that has commented that they knew him and did not think him a scumbag or dirtball. Can you elaborate a little on how you view him and why? Thanks.
This Administration would miss a red flag if it were planting smack in the middle of the freaking Rose Garden.
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