Sorry, Kerik story too good to let die!

Come to think of it, Kerik shouldn't have been rejected by the Bushies. If they were honest, they would celebrate him as the prototypical GOP operator, playing the people for a profit.

Robert Scheer points out what many of us have been saying, Kerik's 'Nannygate' Was the Least of It.

How revealing that the nomination of Bernard Kerik as Homeland Security chief should be derailed not by the former New York City police commissioner's alleged violations of conflict-of-interest laws, mob connections and post-9/11 security industry profiteering, but rather by his rueful admission that he paid no taxes for his "illegal immigrant" baby-sitter.

Since harassing, detaining and deporting productive and otherwise law-abiding immigrants without proper residency papers has been the main task of the Homeland Security Department, the tough law-and-order booster of President Bush at the Republican National Convention could have claimed his nanny connection as research. Instead of admitting that this "lovely woman," entrusted for years with the care of his children, was part of that essential but exploited mass of "illegal aliens" whose drudgery permits the powerful to shirk family responsibilities and strut unencumbered on a larger stage, Kerik could have claimed he was merely infiltrating the ranks of the enemy.

The guy was a thugish crook and the nanny incident gave Giuliani and the administration a good out, hoping the rest of the dirt would not come to the surface.

This rough-around-the-edges high school dropout's profligate ways led to personal bankruptcy and, ultimately, some very dubious dealings with shady characters. Yet "America's Mayor" liked what he saw in the undercover cop with six diamond studs in his ear - a young blood whose wild style earned him the name "Mayhem Magnet" - and plucked him out to be the Big Apple's top cop.

Once his act went national, however, cracks in Kerik's facade started to look a lot worse. One of the most detailed exposes stressing Kerik's alleged ties to New York mobsters ran in the New York Daily News on Sunday. Why didn't those in the administration who vetted Kerik for this job know any of this?

"Why didn't those in the administration who vetted Kerik for this job know any of this?" I think we know the answer to this question. Our dress up president liked Kerik's style and tough guy swagger and no body in the administration will tell Bush anything he doesn't want to hear. Giuliani saw Kerik as another car on his gravy train and expected him to direct all sorts of business his way.

Giuliani should have known.

A smart guy like Giuliani should have suspected something in 1998, when his wife and his deputy mayor attended Kerik's lavish wedding, which was dotted with mob-connected characters. This was two years before he appointed Kerik to head the New York City Police Department.

To be fair, it would be only later that the Daily News reported the wedding was paid for with money from folks with city contracts and mob connections, some of whom were later indicted. But anyone knowledgeable about Kerik should have known that he could not afford his sumptuous lifestyle, given his bankruptcy and, according to Newsweek magazine, a contempt citation for failing to pay a debt in a business dealing.

So the administration overlooked Kerik's background because Bush liked his style and Giuliani overlooked it because he saw the advantages of having one of "his guys" in the government security business.

UPDATE
Joe Gandelman reports that

Miramax — which bought the screen rights to Kerik’s autobiography — is seriously reconsidering the movie it’s making on the controversial lawman,

Miramax bought the rights to Kerik’s best-selling “The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice” last year; “Aviator” executive producer Rick Schwartz was hired to produce it.

No job and now no movie, ain't life a bitch?