Giuliani's X-Partner Bernard Kerik Indicted

So Bernie Kerik is finally getting indicted. And now the Giuliani campaign really gets interesting. I have no doubt we'll be bringing you a lot more on this in the coming days. But there's just one point I want to flag now.

Rudy Giuliani's response to all the renewed controversy over Kerik has been to say that making Bernie Kerik police commissioner was just one mistake out of hundreds of thousands of good decisions. (Two, I guess, if you count the decision to try to make him Secretary of DHS.)

But look closely at how this line of reasoning matches up with the other key argument Rudy is making for his candidacy.

Rudy claims that his qualification for the presidency stems from his management of 9/11 and his experience having "the safety and security of the people of New York on my shoulders." I've noted more than a few times now that this is a rather grandiose conception of the mayoralty of any city. But the only sense in which it has any basis is that in New York (as in many cities) the mayor is in charge of and ultimately accountable for the police department. So who you choose to put in charge of the police department isn't just one of hundreds of thousands of decisions. It is both by simple logic and Rudy's own reasoning probably the most important decision you can make.

And what did Giuliani do? Let's set aside all of the Kerik run-of-mill corruption and the fact that he used a Battery Park apartment donated as a rest area for cops and rescue workers working at Ground Zero as his own personal love shack to boff Judith Regan and sundry other ladies of glamor and renown. Set all that fun stuff aside and realize that Rudy not only appointed a crooked, mobbed-up cop to be in charge of the NYPD. There is now abundant evidence that Rudy knew of Kerik's mob ties before appointing him.

Just boil it down and say it: when it came time to choose a police commissioner Rudy chose a crooked, mobbed up cop. And he was warned about it all in advance.

That isn't just one decision among hundreds of thousands. It's one of such recklessness, irresponsibility and even a hard-to-figure indifference to criminal conduct that, just on the terms upon which Rudy has asked voters to judge his candidacy, it should pretty much end his campaign in its tracks.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/058362.php