Rudy Can Fail

by digby

He sounds a little nervous about this:

“The reality is, if we take a look at Bernard Kerik’s service as police commissioner, he was an excellent police commissioner. Crime went down unexpectadly under Bernard Kerik.

“Then on the other side of it, there were these problems. I take the responsibility. We should have known about them. We should have dealt with them. We didn’t. It was my mistake. I made it. I am sorry for it. I’ve learned from it. But in the balance of things, you take a look at the success that I had, it must be that I am generally picking the right people. Because I am sure not doing this by myself.”

Not to pick nits or anything, but Rudy Giuliani, the Czar of 9/11, the man whose entire campaign is based on the idea that he will keep the babies safe from the boogeyman, personally recommended Bernard Kerik to be the Director of Homeland Security.

The fact that he stood around on the sidewalks of New York giving press conferences after 9/11 can’t make up for the fact that Kerik was his business partner and one of his very closest associates whom he groomed and mentored for years. He wasn’t just some bad personnel decision at City Hall in the 1990’s. Giuliani truly believed that this crook was an appropriate choice for one of the most powerful agencies in the United States.

That’s a pretty big mistake. Huge. In fact, it’s disqualifying.

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