{"id":3735,"date":"2005-03-14T12:54:31","date_gmt":"2005-03-14T17:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3735.html"},"modified":"2005-03-14T12:54:31","modified_gmt":"2005-03-14T17:54:31","slug":"that-heart-for-the-innocent-clearly-has-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/that-heart-for-the-innocent-clearly-has-limits\/","title":{"rendered":"That &#8216;heart for the innocent&#8217; clearly has limits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/news\/releases\/2004\/12\/20041203-4.html\">president introduced<\/a> Bernard Kerik as his nominee to be the Secretary of Homeland Security, Bush described him as a man who has demonstrated a &#8220;deep commitment to justice&#8221; and &#8220;a heart for the innocent.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Within weeks, we learned that the White House also knew about a man who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A63479-2004Dec14.html\">has demonstrated<\/a> a willingness to hire illegal immigrants, engage in multiple extramarital affairs, and associate with prominent figures in organized crime. The Bush gang decided, at the time, that this past was &#8220;not disqualifying&#8221; and Kerik still deserved the post.<\/p>\n<p>That opinion changed rather quickly, of course, and Kerik left the scene, promising to behave himself from now on. Which makes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/news\/story\/289722p-248042c.html\">this story<\/a> all the more hilarious.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik accepted thousands of dollars in royalties from a book published to raise money for the families of heroes killed on Sept. 11, 2001, the Daily News has learned.<\/p>\n<p>Kerik contributed an 11-sentence foreword to the book of photographs, titled &#8220;In the Line of Duty,&#8221; in which he praised police and firefighters who &#8220;desperately fought and struggled and bled and died in a noble effort.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Theirs is a story beyond words; a story of bravery, fidelity and sacrifice; a story that must never be forgotten,&#8221; Kerik wrote. <\/p>\n<p>Kerik&#8217;s royalties on the book have so far totaled $75,954.52, sources told The News.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Former Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen also contributed an introduction to the book, but accepted no money and asked his payment to go to charity.<\/p>\n<p>You don&#8217;t suppose Kerik&#8217;s payment had anything to do with his year-long affair with the book&#8217;s publisher, Judith Regan, do you?<\/p>\n<p>Just think; if the president had his way, this man would be responsible for all of our domestic security. The mind reels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the president introduced Bernard Kerik as his nominee to be the Secretary of Homeland Security, Bush described him as a man who has demonstrated a &#8220;deep commitment to justice&#8221; and &#8220;a heart for the innocent.&#8221; Within weeks, we learned that the White House also knew about a man who has demonstrated a willingness to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735","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=3735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}