Kerik was Bush's kind of guy

Elisabeth why does this woman still have a job Bumiller has an article on the failed vetting of Bernard Kerik today. There are some things we already knew and a couple of bits of new information. First, what we already knew:

The story of Mr. Kerik's nomination is one of how a normally careful White House faltered because of Mr. Bush's personal enthusiasm for Mr. Kerik, a desire by the administration to quickly fill a critical national security job and an apparent lack of candor from Mr. Kerik himself.

Translation; Bush liked Kerik's tough guy swagger. The boss likes him, don't rock the boat.

The new information is that Kerik apparently has an aversion to filling out forms required for background checks.

A major problem, law enforcement officials said, was that the White House did not have the benefit of any F.B.I. investigation into Mr. Kerik's past. Mr. Kerik, as New York City's police commissioner on Sept. 11, 2001, had been offered a high security clearance by federal officials so he could receive classified intelligence about the city's security, a law enforcement official said. But he failed to return a questionnaire needed for the F.B.I. to conduct a background check, and he never received that clearance, the law enforcement official said.

and

Mr. Kerik also failed to complete a required federal financial disclosure form in May 2003, when he left the country to spend three and a half months in Iraq trying to train Iraqi police officers, a law enforcement official said. The disclosure form, law enforcement officials said, might have turned up some of the financial problems that surfaced this month in connection with a condominium he owned in New Jersey.

So how did this crooked slime ball get as far as he did? The answer is once again the method of operation at the White House, faith based operation. George Bush knew in his gut that Kerik was the guy, that was all anybody needed. No need to check the facts or ask for other opinions, Bush's gut knows, the same gut that took us to Iraq.

Update
Joe Gandelman has more.