In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Don't feel bad about Kerik and Gonzalez - Bush is already drafting plans for them to get the medal of freedom next year.
Yes, Bush again seems perfectly happy with incompetence.
Bushies circle the wagons 'round AG pickWASHINGTON - Even though critics say he flubbed the vetting of Bernie Kerik, Team Bush yesterday absolved White House Counsel and attorney general nominee Alberto Gonzales.Yes, it was that damn Nanny
Often mentioned as an eventual Supreme Court pick, Gonzales still is sure to be questioned about what went wrong in tapping Kerik for the homeland security post when he faces his own Senate confirmation hearing early next year, congressional sources told the Daily News.
The White House insists the process worked and that the problem was Kerik's failure to be forthright about hiring a nanny who was an illegal immigrant and failing to pay taxes.
"Rest assured, we did significant due diligence," said White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, who, without specifying, claimed the administration knew about some of Kerik's other black marks.
"We were aware of many of the issues that have been reported," Bartlett insisted, except for the hiring of the nanny.
Ummm... but was there even a nanny?
Mystery Woman in Kerik Case: NannyOne secret after another has tumbled out since the collapse of Bernard B. Kerik's nomination as homeland security secretary - an undisclosed marriage, clandestine love affairs, unsavory business ties and unreported gifts.But that was okay - until the world learned he had a nanny (okay a nanny with immigration issues, and a person Kerik never paid taxes on... but perhaps he didn't pay taxes on her because she didn't exist... and why does a grown man need a nanny anyways? I thought he was supposed to be so tough but he needs a nanny? What does he need to have her help clean his face after eating ice cream?The White House has been unwilling to discuss any specifics of the nanny herself, including whether anyone in the administration had asked Mr. Kerik for details about her identity, status or nationality. Answers were not forthcoming from Mr. Kerik's camp, either. "We are not going to discuss the nanny any further," said Christopher Rising, general counsel at Giuliani-Kerik L.L.C., who is acting as a spokesman for Mr. Kerik.So maybe the nanny existed maybe not, but I just want to note that the Bush administration claims the nanny was a "deal breaker," not the other known black marks in Kerik's record.
...
A neighbor who lives next door to the Keriks in Franklin Lakes, N.J., said that until a few weeks ago she would see a woman she believed to be the nanny playing ball with the two Kerik children in a side yard. But even that neighbor, who described the children's playmate as a young, olive-skinned woman who did not drive, had never met the woman or learned where she came from. The neighbor spoke on the condition of anonymity.
But many others have either been reluctant or unable to talk about her, including other nannies in the neighborhood, relatives of Mr. Kerik's wife, Hala, even Mr. Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina.
Mr. Tacopina, who has also been fielding calls from the press on Mr. Kerik's behalf, said he knows nothing about the nanny's identity, the length of her employment or even her nationality, despite news reports that she was Mexican that were mistakenly attributed to him.
"I never met her," he said. "I don't know what country she came from. I don't know her nationality. I don't know her name." Pressed, he added, "I know she's not a phantom, because a document was applied for and received."
...
In the blue-collar neighborhood of Elmwood Park, N.J., where Mrs. Kerik's mother, Zakia, lived in a rented duplex for years, neighbors reacted with surprise to questions about a nanny, and said that Mrs. Kerik's mother had moved into the Kerik home about a year ago.
"They never came around here with a nanny," said Sophie Borsuk, 55, the longtime landlady and downstairs neighbor of Mrs. Kerik's mother. "I never saw any nanny. This is the first time I heard about a nanny."
But in Franklin Lakes, a town of vast lawns and winding driveways, nannies are practically an expected status symbol, according to the owners of nanny agencies that serve the area, all of which denied supplying the Keriks with a nanny.
"He had to have known the status of his nanny," said Christine Sandrib, who has operated Nannies N More for 14 years. "If she's illegal, anybody in his position had to have known."
Like Christy Ann Bozanian, owner of A Better Nanny, Ms. Sandrib stressed that an agency was responsible for determining that any employee it placed was legal. Their own agencies require a green card or work authorization as well as a criminal background check. Both said the demand for legal, thoroughly vetted nannies had risen dramatically in recent years.
"In particular post 9/11, there's a greater concern about knowing who is in their home," Ms. Sandrib said. "This neighborhood is full of attorneys, physicians, people involved in politics at some sort of a level. They're not interested in illegal candidates. An educated person should know to ask for that."
What kind of black marks? Is it the affairs? Is it the secret wife? What could it be? What kind of black marks is the White House fine with?
Well perhaps they are fine with the fact that Kerik seemed to have really enjoyed the movie Bad Lieutenant .
Let's see what the NY Papers are finding out about Kerik's black marks:Gee, no wonder Bush likes the guy: corrupt, abuse of power, spending tax money for expensive security measures that don't actually do anything; why if it wasn't for the sex scandals he'd be VP!
- He seems to have a bit of a mob connection: KERIK MOB PROBE
December 16, 2004 -- The Bronx District Attorney's Office said yesterday it will investigate allegations that former NYPD top cop Bernard Kerik used a mob-connected contractor to renovate an apartment he purchased.
Bronx DA Robert Johnson is launching the probe in the wake of a report that in 1999 Kerik had a mob-connected contractor convert two first-floor apartments into one large apartment at the West 239th Street building.
Kerik, then the city's Correction Department commissioner, was experiencing severe financial problems at the time.- Besides having affairs and then stalking ex-lovers... he stalks their family too: THE CHILLING DAY BERNIE STALKED REGAN'S SON ON HIGHWAY: BIZ PAL
When Regan ate in a restaurant with another man, Kerik called her cellphone, or had the management page her, said the source. Once he got her on the phone, "He'd describe the man she was having dinner with. He seemed to be watching her through the window," the associate said. He kept a key to her apartment, said another pal, and showed up unexpectedly. On a business trip to Los Angeles, she said, he had her followed.
But what frightened Regan most was a call in which Kerik he claimed to be following her son as he drove back to college in Massachusetts.
"He said, 'I'm following Patrick. I'm at this exit at the turnpike. I want you to know this is where he is,' " the associate recalled.
While the married Kerik has all but acknowledged that he carried on affairs with not one, but two women in his Battery Park love nest — an apartment that had been originally donated to 9/11 rescue workers — he denied stalking.- He seems to be worried about some of his shady deals coming to life: KERIK QUIT L.I. FIRM IN A HURRY
In late October, Kerik abruptly submitted a resignation letter as an adviser to the firm, Hauppauge-based Defense Technology Systems Inc., failing thereafter to return phone calls asking for an explanation, said the company's chief operating and finance officer, Philip Rauch.
Three weeks later, Kerik returned certificates for 400,000 shares of stock and the surrender of a slew of options he'd been granted by the firm, Rauch said.
Rauch said no one at Defense Technology has any idea why Kerik cut ties to the company, except perhaps in the hope of distancing himself from its association with a Queens-based security-door company, Georal Inc., if questions about that company should have come up at his confirmation hearings.
In late October, Georal's owner, Alan Risi pleaded guilty to submitting inflated and excessive invoices to the city under various contracts, and is scheduled for sentencing this Friday.
In June 2001, when Kerik was running the New York Police Department, Risi's company sold the department four automatic high-security door systems for 1 Police Plaza, at a price that published reports say was roughly $200,000. Georal's general counsel, Theodore Pryor, said that figure is "somewhat low."
When the doors arrived, they were never installed, and wound up being shipped to Rikers Island for use there.
- rob 5:52 PM - [PermaLink] -
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