Bush Picks Kerik for Homeland Security Job

[Warham]

Dec 2, 2004 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush has picked former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik as his homeland security secretary and an announcement is expected as early as Friday, Republican officials said on Thursday.

Kerik gained national attention during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York City and has been a strong Bush supporter.

Two Republican officials said Bush had chosen Kerik to replace Tom Ridge as head of U.S. homeland security.

Ridge announced on Tuesday he was stepping down. An announcement could come as early as Friday, the officials said.

[Viking]

Kerik's a tough as nails dude, with a good pedigree and a street cop's smarts. You can bet he won't put up with any inter-departmental horseshit and infighting amongst the various agencies.

Go ahead FORD, I know you have some wild hair up your ass, being that it's a 'BCE' appointment - he's a closet Nazi, his feet stink, or some other shit. :rolleyes:

Oh, BTW - tell your neighbors, thanks for adding another Pubbie governor to our win column. ;)

[FORD]

Originally posted by Viking

Go ahead FORD, I know you have some wild hair up your ass, being that it's a 'BCE' appointment

I thought something was rotten when Kerik was suddenly in Iraq allegedly training their police, and I believe it's even more rotten now.

Kerik was in on it, I'm convinced now. And you know damn well what I mean.

Oh, BTW - tell your neighbors, thanks for adding another Pubbie governor to our win column. ;)

The votes haven't actually been counted yet. We'll see.... ;)

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD
The votes haven't actually been counted yet. We'll see.... ;)

Oh yes they have. ;)

[FORD]

Machine counts are not accurate. The same machines went from a 261 vote margin to a 42 vote margin. What does that tell you about their accuracy?

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD
Machine counts are not accurate. The same machines went from a 500 vote margin to a 42 vote margin. What does that tell you about their accuracy?

Machines depend on operators. It's really quite that simple. Nothing is foolproof.

Face it dude, you will have a Republican Governor. I hope you retain your job, though. I am serious about that. I wouldn't wish unemployment on anyone. Best of luck. :gulp:

[FORD]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Machines depend on operators. It's really quite that simple. Nothing is foolproof.

Face it dude, you will have a Republican Governor. I hope you retain your job, though. I am serious about that. I wouldn't wish unemployment on anyone. Best of luck. :gulp:

Thanks, but I hope it doesn't come to that. However, if every vote is counted, I can live with it either way. I won't deny that the vote was close. Rossi is as far to the right as any other GOP candidate here in the last 20 years. He just had better marketing than any of them. The guy could sell space heaters to Satan, I'll give him that much, but that doesn't make him a good governor :(

[Phil theStalker]

Originally posted by FORD
Machine counts are not accurate. The same machines went from a 500 vote margin to a 42 vote margin. What does that tell you about their accuracy?
It tells me there's going to be civil war in this country, FORD.

What, do we all have STUPID written on our foreheads?!!!


P

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Phil theStalker
It tells me there's going to be civil war in this country, FORD.

What, do we all have STUPID written on our foreheads?!!!


P

No, just you. :gulp:

[Warham]

There goes Phil acting like a cunt again.

[Viking]

Originally posted by FORD:

I thought something was rotten when Kerik was suddenly in Iraq allegedly training their police, and I believe it's even more rotten now.

Kerik was in on it, I'm convinced now. And you know damn well what I mean.

No, I don't know what you mean. Man, you need to get help. Or at least start a web site so I have a clue as to what your deluded conspiracy theories are about. :rolleyes:

[Ally_Kat]

Originally posted by FORD
I thought something was rotten when Kerik was suddenly in Iraq allegedly training their police, and I believe it's even more rotten now.

Kerik was in on it, I'm convinced now. And you know damn well what I mean.

I can't believe I just read that.

Nawh, he couldn't have been sent because of how he revamped large sections of the system here in the city and showed huge results. Naaaaaawh. He had to be selected because he's part of the BCE and helped take down the Twin Towers.

Hey Ford, maybe he was the one who rigged up the demolition!

[FORD]

Originally posted by Ally_Kat
I can't believe I just read that.

Nawh, he couldn't have been sent because of how he revamped large sections of the system here in the city and showed huge results. Naaaaaawh. He had to be selected because he's part of the BCE and helped take down the Twin Towers.

Hey Ford, maybe he was the one who rigged up the demolition!

He and Rudy both know who did, that's for damn sure. As does Marvin Bush, who oddly enough was in charge of WTC security. Wonder who got him that job, and why?

The charges were likely placed in the WTC buildings under the cover of the new sprinkler system which was installed shortly before the "attack".

Towers 1 & 2's collapses strongly resembled that of a controlled demolition - including the statements of FDNY who heard explosions from inside the building, and others who saw the flashes of light - on the lower levels, NOT where the jet fuel was burning .

Even if you try to deny that, you cannot explain the collapse of WTC 7, brought down later in the day. Clearly, with no power (i.e. lights) in the area after the attacks, there would be no way to have wired WTC 7 with charges anytime between 10:30 AM (after the collapse of the towers) and the late afternoon time of its own collapse.

Larry Silverstein, owner of the WTC complex is on record as saying he authorized the demolition of WTC 7. Clearly the charges in the building that collapsed it were placed there before 9-11-01.

Assuming this to be a fact, is it then also not logical that the twin towers themselves were also wired with the same explosive charges, and that they were used to bring those buildings down.

In other words, the plane crashes were added for the pure cinematic quality of shock value propaganda. The buildings would have been brought down regardless.

[Warham]

Totally delusional.

People need help.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD
He and Rudy both know who did, that's for damn sure. As does Marvin Bush, who oddly enough was in charge of WTC security. Wonder who got him that job, and why?

The charges were likely placed in the WTC buildings under the cover of the new sprinkler system which was installed shortly before the "attack".

Towers 1 & 2's collapses strongly resembled that of a controlled demolition - including the statements of FDNY who heard explosions from inside the building, and others who saw the flashes of light - on the lower levels, NOT where the jet fuel was burning .

Even if you try to deny that, you cannot explain the collapse of WTC 7, brought down later in the day. Clearly, with no power (i.e. lights) in the area after the attacks, there would be no way to have wired WTC 7 with charges anytime between 10:30 AM (after the collapse of the towers) and the late afternoon time of its own collapse.

Larry Silverstein, owner of the WTC complex is on record as saying he authorized the demolition of WTC 7. Clearly the charges in the building that collapsed it were placed there before 9-11-01.

Assuming this to be a fact, is it then also not logical that the twin towers themselves were also wired with the same explosive charges, and that they were used to bring those buildings down.

In other words, the plane crashes were added for the pure cinematic quality of shock value propaganda. The buildings would have been brought down regardless.

FORD, you're a fuckin' retard. :gulp:

[FORD]

Like I said, live in denial all you want. But tell me when they wired WTC 7 with explosives.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by FORD
Like I said, live in denial all you want. But tell me when they wired WTC 7 with explosives.

Show me the evidence!

[Ally_Kat]

Originally posted by FORD
Like I said, live in denial all you want. But tell me when they wired WTC 7 with explosives.

you don't remember the pictures I posted of the subway tunnels that were underneath the WTC buildings? The beams the held up everything turned to rumbled due to the shock of the two buildings falling prior.

But yeah...he was in on it and 7 was demolished.

Riddle me this one Batman -- if he was in it, why wait so long to put him in? Why not have him as the first?

[FORD]

Originally posted by Ally_Kat
you don't remember the pictures I posted of the subway tunnels that were underneath the WTC buildings? The beams the held up everything turned to rumbled due to the shock of the two buildings falling prior.

But yeah...he was in on it and 7 was demolished.

Riddle me this one Batman -- if he was in it, why wait so long to put him in? Why not have him as the first?

Probably because he was in Iraq? And he thought Ridge would be a better liar when it came time for the fake "terralerts".

[Ally_Kat]

Originally posted by FORD
Probably because he was in Iraq? And he thought Ridge would be a better liar when it came time for the fake "terralerts".

Uh -- wasn't the department created BEFORE anything was done in Iraq?

[DEMON CUNT]

OOPS!

http://www.aeispeakers.com/Liddy-GGordon.jpg

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD
Probably because he was in Iraq? And he thought Ridge would be a better liar when it came time for the fake "terralerts".

Another stupid post courtesy of FORD. :gulp:

[Nickdfresh]

December 12, 2004

THE NATION
A Cabinet Setback for Bush
Some analysts say the president stumbled by nominating a chief of Homeland Security before fully vetting the candidate.


By Janet Hook, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — The abrupt withdrawal of the White House's choice to head the Homeland Security Department is an embarrassing setback for President Bush's effort to put his second-term Cabinet in place quickly and without controversy.

One day after acknowledging that a woman who was a domestic employee as recently as two weeks ago may have been an illegal immigrant, former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik accepted blame for failing to unearth the problem and tell the White House before he was nominated to be secretary of Homeland Security.


"This is my responsibility," Kerik told reporters in front of his New Jersey home Saturday morning, just a few hours after his withdrawal was announced late Friday night. "It was my mistake. It wasn't a mistake made by the White House."

Kerik's withdrawal forces the White House to find someone else to fill one of the most important jobs in the Cabinet for Bush, who has made fighting terrorism his No. 1 priority.

Even before Kerik's nanny troubles surfaced, Democratic opponents and news organizations were mining his colorful and controversial record for evidence of possible conflicts of interest and other questions about his ethics.

Some analysts said that Bush had been in such a hurry to complete his Cabinet — and to name a hero of the Sept. 11 attacks and protege of former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani to a leading role — that the White House did not catch obvious problems in Kerik's background.

"The president violated every rule that guides the nominating process: Don't announce until you vet," said Paul Light, an analyst at the Brookings Institution who has studied the presidential appointment process. "They announced well before Kerik had filled out the most basic of paperwork."

As a blunt-speaking outsider, Kerik broke the pattern set by Bush in filling other top Cabinet posts with longtime associates and loyal aides. But there was much in Kerik for Bush to like. He earned his stripes as police chief on the day New York suffered its traumatic terrorist attack. He was a favorite of Giuliani, who was a popular and active campaigner for Bush's reelection in 2004. New York's two liberal Democratic senators, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer, supported his nomination. And he had the kind of hard-knock life story that appeals to Bush.

White House spokeswoman Clare Buchan denied that the administration was any more lax in screening Kerik's background than it was with any other nominee.

"There is a standard vetting process that we go through with all nominees, and we did that with Commissioner Kerik," she said. Of his replacement, Buchan said, "We certainly will work to name someone as quickly as possible."

Another Republican close to the process predicted the White House would turn to a "safer" nominee.

"What Homeland Security needs most is a strong manager," said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's in danger of turning into a collection of agencies that aren't very well-run and aren't coordinated with each other."

Among those said to be on the short list are Asa Hutchinson, an assistant secretary of Homeland Security; Sean O'Keefe, NASA administrator; Joe Allbaugh, a close Bush associate and former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; and Fran Townsend, Homeland Security advisor in the White House.

Kerik's withdrawal is the second time in as many weeks that the usually well-oiled White House machine has hit a glitch in putting Bush's second-term Cabinet in place. Before Bush last week asked Treasury Secretary John W. Snow to stay in his post, news reports emerged saying that the president wanted Snow to leave and that the administration was considering other candidates. It was an unusual airing of internal dissent from an administration known for its disciplined message control.

The Kerik controversy was a bigger political headache, but it was not the first time that Bush had confronted the "nanny problem" that had derailed other Cabinet nominations in the last decade. In 2001, Bush nominated Linda Chavez to be secretary of Labor. Her nomination was withdrawn after it was revealed that she had hired an illegal immigrant.

At issue in Kerik's case is a woman, whose name and nationality have not been revealed, who worked for him as a housekeeper and nanny for his children. She left the country about two weeks ago, under circumstances Kerik has not described.

Kerik and Giuliani said that before the nomination was announced, White House officials had asked Kerik about his domestic employees, and he had indicated there were no problems. But in delving more deeply as he prepared federal paperwork last week, Kerik said, he discovered that he had owed back taxes on the employee.

Then he came to realize "there may have been a question as to her legal status in the country," Kerik said Saturday. He said that conclusion — and not any of the other elements of his record — was the reason he called Bush on Friday night to withdraw his name from consideration.

Giuliani, who is Kerik's business partner and had urged Bush to nominate Kerik to be Homeland Security chief, told reporters Saturday that the revelation about Kerik's employee was an embarrassment to Kerik and his supporters: "We should have disclosed this; we should have found out earlier."

Light said that the Clinton administration, which also had nominees derailed by questions about their domestic employees, responded to those earlier episodes by applying stricter scrutiny to potential nominees. Some candidates, Light said, were not just asked about their employees, as was Kerik. They were also required to provide documentation that their employees were legal and their taxes had been paid before a nomination could be announced.

Giuliani told reporters in New York that he was "heartbroken" that Kerik was dropping out, but that there was no alternative. Because the Homeland Security secretary oversees immigration enforcement, Kerik could not be confirmed if he had employed an illegal worker.

"Every time an immigration issue came up, it would be a problem," Giuliani said.

Senate Democratic aides said that Kerik's confirmation fight in the Senate would have become protracted and messy, and not just because of his domestic employee.

A series of news reports in recent days have revealed a career riddled with controversy, including allegations of conflicts of interest stemming from his business dealings since stepping down as police commissioner and allegations that he improperly sent two police officers to conduct research for his autobiography.

Newsweek this weekend reported that a New Jersey judge in 1998 had issued an arrest warrant as part of a series of lawsuits relating to unpaid bills on Kerik's condominium. Giuliani said the warrant came in a civil proceeding that was resolved, and that the report had no bearing on Kerik's decision to drop out of Cabinet consideration.

"He is a colorful guy," said one Democrat who is following the nomination, speaking on condition of anonymity. "What the White House has learned the hard way is that there's a difference between having a colorful past and having a checkered past."

*

Washington Bureau Chief Doyle McManus contributed to this report.