Bush’s First Choice For Homeland Security Director
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Showing the leader’s special skill for picking the most unqualified people for the most important jobs
More than 18 months after his Homeland Security nomination sank over ethics questions, former police commissioner Bernard Kerik pleaded guilty Friday to accepting tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from a New Jersey firm with alleged mob connections.
Kerik pleaded guilty to a pair of misdemeanors in state Supreme Court in the Bronx in a deal that spared him any jail time. Kerik was instead ordered to pay a total of $221,000 in fines at the 10-minute hearing.
Kerik acknowledged accepting $165,000 worth of renovations on his Bronx apartment from a company attempting to do business with the city — Interstate Industrial Corp., a business reputedly linked to organized crime. And he admitted failing to report a loan as required by city law.
UPDATE: And in case you forgot, Kerik was highly touted by probable GOP candidate for the presidency, Rudy Giuliani.
33 Responses to “Bush’s First Choice For Homeland Security Director”
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
I am just thankful that all those demorats are such honest upstanding citizens. I am trying to remember if they have ever done something illegal…
Oh, here’s one…
“it was revealed that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger for taking as many as fifty classified documents, in October 2003, from a National Archives reading room prior to testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The documents were commissioned from Richard Clarke about the Clinton administration’s handling of millennium terror threats. When initially questioned, Berger claimed that the removal of top-secret documents in his attache-case and handwritten notes in his pants and jacket pockets was accidental. He would later, in a guilty plea, admit to deliberately removing materials and then cutting them up with scissors.
Right,
or this guy.
Kerik pleads guilty in corruption probe
…
A year and a half after his Homeland Security nomination sank over ethics questions, former New York…
The story about Clinton being handed Bin Laden is false (no doubt you knew that already, but here you go anyway).
Exactly,
I can’t think of another demorat…
Oh, Rep. William Jefferson
Hey Quacker, how big is Tora Bora? The Marines were trying to eliminate him in Tora Bora. Apparently the left could have done a much better job.
They were handing that POS over on a silver platter and your hero said, “No Thank you.”
Willy Clinton should have taken care bin Laden when he had the chance.
I don’t recall President Bush having the opportunity.
“Bill Clinton ignored repeated opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist allies and is responsible for the spread of terrorism, one of the ex-president s own top aides charges.
Mansoor Ijaz, who negotiated with Sudan on behalf of Clinton from 1996 to 1998, paints a portrait of a White House plagued by incompetence, focused on appearances rather than action, and heedless of profound threats to national security.
Ijaz also claims Clinton passed on an opportunity to have Osama bin Laden arrested.
Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, hoping to have terrorism sanctions lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of bin Laden and “detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, Iran’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, Ijaz writes in today s edition of the liberal Los Angeles Times.
These networks included the two hijackers who piloted jetliners into the World Trade Center.
But Clinton and National Security Adviser Samuel “Sandy Berger failed to act.
I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities, Ijaz writes.
The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening.”
So should Georgie Bush.
Haw!
Tora Bora, anyone?
Thanks DCPanic. Lets all remember the significance of pesky documents.
So they never had an opportunity to get him?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/19/taliban.documents/
Sorry, can’t link to it…
I fail to be confused, I think its actually pretty clear. Clinton would have liked to get him, but they lacked any legal way to do so. So rather than violate the law to arrest him and then have to concede that they had no right to hold him and then publically (to say nothing of shame-facedly) releasing him freely back into his organization only to have them reinvigorated and all the more likely to attack, to say nothing of the attacks at home he would endure from republicans who would attack him for violating the law, and then for not violating it enough, rather than put everyone through all that, he just realized that in that case doing nothing was probably the better option. Whether or not he was right is a different issue, but its not a confusing one, the rules wouldnt let it happen. Still confused there scratch? Or has the blindingly obvious become all the easier to understand now?
If only Clinton had had the powers of the Executive Branch that Bush has now, he could have gone and got him.
Yeah, that would go over big with the R’s in the room.
So, according to Clinton s own words, we didn t bring bin Laden to the U.S. for only one reason: because we had no basis on which to hold him.
Not only that but: Sudan was placed on State Department’s list of countries that sponsor terrorist activities in 1993. Does the U.S. negotiate with terrorists? -then and now (minus Iran Contra)?
“So, he made a choice not to bring him to America, though he knew way back then that& wait for it& bin Laden was determined to attack the U.S. “
Clinton was reading the PDB that day? -was he president in Aug 2001?
“All right, you’ve covered your ass, now.”
Actually Rex, that’s a fair analysis (“…from republicans who would attack him for violating the law, and then for not violating it enough”…that’s good stuff, man.) I chose that excerpt from Clinton’s speech because it showed that Clinton actually did have a chance to bring in bin Laden. But Oliver protested that Clinton was not handed bin Laden…a different claim than the one I addressed. Fortunately, it is not in my nature to blame people, including Presidents, for decisions they make in good faith with available information, so I do not mind at all accepting yours and Oliver’s view on this particular subject.
Where’d you get that story, DC? Powerline?
This is a puzzling statement by Clinton:
At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.
So, according to Clinton’s own words, we didn’t bring bin Laden to the U.S. for only one reason: “because we had no basis on which to hold him.”
So, he made a choice not to bring him to America, though he knew way back then that…wait for it…bin Laden was determined to attack the U.S.
.rendering the title of that PDB further into the no shit category.
which in turn further negates the “no one could have anticipated….” defense.
well, ok then.
Were we talking about those plans specifically? I said it further negates it as a defense, not that it absloutley does.
duros…
Oh, I’m sorry. I interpreted your remark to refer to actionable intelligence.
PD100…
You may have missed part of my point. Clinton said that even back in ’96, he knew that bin Ladin was eager to attack the U.S….rendering the title of that PDB further into the “no shit” category.
Did the PDB refer to actionable intelligence?
Duros…
Oh, did that PDB mention the plans to hijack planes and fly them into buildings?
Do Duros, it did not. And that is my point.
Panic’s distractions aside, the man Mr. Bush wanted to put in charge of the nation’s security seems to have a little mob problem.
Quacker:
Calling you a douchebag belittles actual Bags of Douche, at least they provide a service.
the man Mr. Clinton PUT in charge of National Security had a little “stealing classified documents” problem.
Oh yeah, trying to steal classified documents is so much, much worse than being mobbed up, asshole.
Talk about equivalency…
Not even close.
still waitiing for quaker’s response to the fact that the attorney for the gitmo group is actually a leftist activist…
Namecalling, Panic?
Congratulations on taking the quality of your posts up a notch.
His military attorney? Lt. Cmdr. Swift?