Rudy nominating a corrupt crony shows a serious lack of judgement that has NOTHING to do with the events of 9-11, other than to show he thought it more important to get his guy into the most important anti-terror job than to vet him to make sure he was up to the task. The media shot Kerik down in less than a week, and for good reason.
Kerik also had a reputation as a "can do" guy (which is what the very first media reports focused on, before they uncovered the dirt -- I remember reading them at the time). Giuliani is very results-oriented. He was trying to get a major city back up and running, so it wouldn't turn into a further disaster (such as we saw with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina). Giuliani is a very smart guy. I think he probably learned his lesson with Kerik -- that you need someone who is not only up to the task (which Kerik, by all reports, would have been) but ALSO as blemishless as Caesar's wife.
As I said, I want someone who has learned and will apply the lessons of 9-11. I'm not convinced that Giuliani is the only viable candidate who could do that ... but for all the posters who sing the praises of Duncan Hunter and others on these Rudy threads, I have seen very few news posts about Hunter and others on FR. I encourage all those who support other candidates to get busy and locate some informative stories on Hunter and others and POST them (as news stories, not to my personal mailbox, please!) so that we can all read them and compare all the available candidates.