{"id":13470,"date":"2007-11-03T16:00:41","date_gmt":"2007-11-03T20:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13470.html"},"modified":"2007-11-03T16:00:41","modified_gmt":"2007-11-03T20:00:41","slug":"giulianis-wise-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/giulianis-wise-guy\/","title":{"rendered":"Giuliani’s wise guy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By any reasonable measure, Rudy Giuliani’s many scandalous associations<\/a> should effectively end his presidential campaign, but it’s Bernie Kerik that should embarrass Giuliani to the point of humiliation.<\/p>\n

Today, the NYT offers a detailed, comprehensive look<\/a> at the bizarre relationship between the former NYC mayor and his disgraced former police commissioner. The piece adds some details that I hadn’t seen before, all of which makes Giuliani look even worse. (Yes, apparently that’s possible.)<\/p>\n

There are, for example, the warnings Giuliani received about Kerik’s suspected ties to organized crime, before Giuliani made him police commissioner. Asked about the allegations, Giuliani initially said, “I was not informed of it.” Later, Giuliani testified that he couldn’t remember if his city investigations commissioner, Edward J. Kuriansky, briefed him on Kerik’s alleged criminal activity.<\/p>\n

But a review of Mr. Kuriansky’s diaries, and investigators’ notes from a 2004 interview with him, now indicate that such a session indeed took place. What is more, Mr. Kuriansky also recalled briefing one of Mr. Giuliani’s closest aides, Dennison Young Jr., about Mr. Kerik’s entanglements with the company just days before the police appointment, according to the diaries he compiled at the time and his later recollection to the investigators.<\/p>\n

The additional evidence raises questions not only about the precision of Mr. Giuliani’s recollection, but also about how a man who proclaims his ability to pick leaders came to overlook a jumble of disturbing information about Mr. Kerik, even as he pushed him for two crucial government positions.<\/p>\n

“Rudy can fall for people big time, and sometimes qualifications are secondary to loyalty,” said Fran Reiter, a former Giuliani deputy mayor who now supports Hillary Clinton. “If he gets it in his head he trusts you, he is extremely loyal.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why does this sound so familiar? A chief executive who’ll put loyalty above merit, even if that means putting suspected criminals in positions of power and authority — just what the country needs right now.<\/p>\n

As for the details, Paul Curtis<\/a> urges us not to skip past this too quickly: “Giuliani claims he doesn’t remember being told that the man he was about to nominate to command the New York City police department<\/i> had ties to organized crime. That’s like not remembering when you were warned that the person you hired to babysit your kids was a convicted sex offender.”
\n
\nOf course, Giuliani bragged about his decision to promote Kerik, despite the criminal allegations and his lack of qualifications.<\/p>\n

In 2000, more than half the mayor’s cabinet had opposed Mr. Kerik’s appointment to be police commissioner. His detractors had noted, among other concerns, that Mr. Kerik did not have a college degree, a department requirement at the time for captains and above.<\/p>\n

Mr. Giuliani waved off the dissenters. “I believe that the skill I have developed better than any other was surrounding myself with great people,” Mr. Giuliani wrote in his 2002 book, “Leadership.”<\/p>\n

“Too many leaders overlook candidates with unusual resumes because of a failure of nerve,” Mr. Giuliani wrote. “By the time I appointed Bernie Kerik, I had hired so many people that I was immune to such criticisms.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, his ability to ignore the advice of qualified officials is something Giuliani is proud<\/i> of.<\/p>\n

Then there’s this gem:<\/p>\n

When Mr. Giuliani became mayor, he gave Mr. Kerik a job in the Correction Department. A year later, the mayor asked him to drop by Gracie Mansion.<\/p>\n

The two men sat upstairs and shared a bottle of red wine, a gift to the mayor from Nelson Mandela. Mr. Giuliani said he planned to appoint Mr. Kerik as first deputy correction commissioner. Mr. Kerik, who wrote of this in his autobiography, “The Lost Son,” was taken aback; he was a year removed from being a police detective.<\/p>\n

“Mayor, I appreciate your confidence in me, I really do,” he said. “But I ran a jail. One jail. Rikers is like 10 jails.”<\/p>\n

Just do it, the mayor replied.<\/p>\n

Mr. Kerik followed Mr. Giuliani downstairs to a dimly lighted room. There waited Mr. Giuliani’s boyhood chum Peter J. Powers, who was first deputy mayor, and other aides. One by one, they pulled Mr. Kerik close and kissed his cheek.<\/p>\n

“I wonder if he noticed how much becoming part of his team resembled becoming part of a mafia family,” Mr. Kerik wrote. “I was being made.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Giuliani’s team, according to one of his closest allies, is similar to an organized crime family.<\/p>\n

Ladies and gentleman, your Republican frontrunner for President of the United States.<\/p>\n

Ezra argued<\/a> the other day, “This guy is out of his goddamn mind.” I often wonder whether the media and the Republican establishment realize this inconvenient reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By any reasonable measure, Rudy Giuliani’s many scandalous associations should effectively end his presidential campaign, but it’s Bernie Kerik that should embarrass Giuliani to the point of humiliation. Today, the NYT offers a detailed, comprehensive look at the bizarre relationship between the former NYC mayor and his disgraced former police commissioner. The piece adds some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}