Reality check
It has been a minor Washington mystery how Bernard Kerik’s name got as far as it did – up to a formal White House announcement by President Bush nominating him as the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.The White House is not yet prepared to say it was a screw-up. Over the weekend, Andrew Card, the president’s chief of staff, said, “Many of the questions that have been raised in the media were well understood by the White House when they considered Bernie Kerik.”
This is disingenuous coming from a canny and respected Washington veteran like Card. Any one of the “questions” that came to light – the undocumented nanny, the two mistresses, assorted questionable financial dealings – was enough to kill the nomination, let alone in combination.
If those questions had truly been “well understood” by the White House staff, someone let the president be badly embarrassed. It should have been a tip-off to someone that Kerik never filed the required background and disclosure forms in 2000 when he became New York police commissioner, the post that brought him to Bush’s attention.
Bush says he was “disappointed” that Kerik’s nomination didn’t go forward; more likely he was greatly relieved at having avoided a messy and doomed Senate confirmation battle.
Kerik withdrew his name Dec. 10. Whether he jumped or was pushed didn’t matter. The nomination was dead.
Card was undoubtedly closer to the mark when he said, “The process of vetting in the White House … is not to telegraph to lots of people what your intentions are.” In other words, they didn’t want to ask a lot of questions for fear Kerik’s name would get out, and they were blindsided by their insistence on secrecy.