FWIW, here’s the statement that made me change my mind, from this NYT article:
"One Democratic Senate staff member, who had been following the nomination process closely and asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the matter, said he was convinced that the nanny question was not the sole reason that Mr. Kerik had dropped out. “Multiple media organizations were pursuing multiple stories,” that would be potentially damaging to Mr. Kerik, he said. Because many of these questions had not yet been answered by the administration, the staff member said, “fundamentally, he was a bad pick.”
I’m sick of unnamed “sources” myself, but I doubt we’re going to get more. Kerik will vanish from the public eye soon enough once he becomes boring to news consumers, and the magnifying glass will be turned on the next poor soul to be nominated.
Well, I start with the assumption that politicians are prone to dishonesty, and then look at the issue at hand to see if there would be a plausible motivation to be dishonest. If there is, I take that possibility seriously. If there isn’t, I don’t. If you think that’s a poor approach, fine, I can’t really dispute it. I guess I tend to take the sincerity of politicians for granted anymore, and it’s my initial response to all statements with a hit of controversy to speculate about what’s really motivating them. It’s not a very simple approach, and frustrating because there’s often little satisfying evidence, but these are political animals we’re trying to figure out, not controlled experiments where the results never misrepresent themselves.
And it’s my oppinion that when you’re dealing with people’s political motivations, Occam’s razor doesn’t always work very well. As the Bard once said “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Isn’t it kinda silly to be worrying over this whole thing. The guy has dropped out. His part is over. Anything else that he is involved in is now offically his own business.
All of this demonization and speculation seems just a tad bit vindictive.
I know I’m a little late to this thread, but I have a question. I’m a non-American, so please be patient.
Isn’t there an obvious long-term political motive behind this: to damage Mr Guiliani’s standing? All the blame for this really accrues to him. He is a figure of some import outside Mr Bush’s group; a rival for future power in the Republican party. As a person seen to be of stature, why not let him nominate someone closely associated with him and his way of doing things. And when the person fails, Mr Guiliani looks small time and amateur.
I suppose one could try to argue that, but Guiliani was very gung-ho about Kerik’s nomination, and knew his history better than anyone. Whatever the nature of this current “Nannygate”, Guiliani must have thought Kerik could weather the approval process without it. I’m not sure if that was a good assessment, but barring illegals and taxes, Guiliani was among Kerik’s greatest advocates, if not the greatest. In fact, Guilianin may have had a bit to do himself with getting Kerik tapped, so if it was a setup, it was one Guiliani actively participated in.
In any event, Guiliani has not escaped the negative impact of the controversy. That fact alone may keep Kerik’s story in the news longer than I thought it would hold the media’s attention.
Interesting idea, hawthorne, and one worth keeping an eye on, as are the other looks into Kerik. However, I have to agree with John and Sam on this one: an illegal nanny is more than enough to scotch a nomination for dogcatcher these days and one for Secretary of Homeland Security? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he would be head of the INS–I mean–the USCIS! That would be like making Ken Lay head of the SEC and, no matter how paranoid as some of us are of the machinations of the Bush administration, that wouldn’t happen.
GeeDubya loves tough guys. Like a lot of men who have lived lives of privilege and exemption, he wants to be considered a tough guy. He wants to associate with tough guys, to be surrounded by them like the doughnut hole is surrounded by doughnut (to steal D. Miller’s memorable line…). In a manner of speaking, its rather a romantic crush, though one without any erotic element whatever.
The President has surrounded himself with syncophants and loyalists. And clearly was smitten with Mr. Kerik. So who was there to tell him otherwise? There were enough red flags flying about Mr. Kerik to fully equip a Kremlin May Day parade, yet apparently, no one had a clue.
So now the WH would dearly love to have us believe that it was all over some bit of piffle about nannies. Nothing to see here, you looky-loos, move along, move along.
Ho-hum, another embarassment for a ham-fisted and clueless Administration. Was one yesterday, be another tomorrow.
I don’t think Kerik would have turned on him like that. He has nothing to gain by doing so. I guess I figured you meant Nannygate redux was an unforseen development in the scheme to damage Guiliani’s reputation. What’s in it for Kerik? He loses Guiliani’s support in any future venture, and he has zero future in national politics.
No, I think it remains that either this illegal immigrant issue is the real deal (in which case Kerik is a complete boob), or Kerik was afraid something even worse would sink him, something he doesn’t want anyone else looking into or drawing more attention to. The plain facts suppor the former; some of the scuttlebut supports the latter. I, for one, am increasingly baffled that Kerik allowed himself to get as far as he did without really looking into the issue. The last two administrations have been burned badly enough by Nannygates that to leave that stone unturned until the final hours of the vetting process seems reckless to say the least.
Oh, this is getting goofy. Yes, there are rumours and reports that Kerik has other skeletons, and they may turn out to be true, but the nanny thing itself was enough to scotch him.
Why? Very simple reason - the Secretary of Homeland Security bears ultimate responsibility for enforcing the nations’ immigration laws. Kerik was automatically disqualified when he violated them.
In this day and age, could a nominee survive a nannygate? Perhaps, if the nominee was for a position unrelated to immigration enforcement. I mean, someone who had a tussle with the IRS 15 years ago might just squeak in as Secretary of Transportation, but sure as hell isn’t going to be nominated for Secretary of the Treasury. It’s just a PR nightmare.
But isn’t it the least bit odd that Kerik got so far into the vetting process before this finally came to light? Nobody would argue that a Nannygate isn’t sufficient. I don’t think anyone has tried. It’s just that, given the disgraceful history this particular sort of skeleton has had both for Bush and for Clinton, isn’t it incredibly sloppy for any nominee to , firstly, allow the same sort of mistake that has sunk three other people to sink him, and secondly, to only notice the liability so late in the game, after enequivocated assurances he did NOT have this sort of problem in his history?
I thought of this too. I wonder who is going to be the next republican presidential nominee, but have not followed republican politians enough to know the real chances of any candidate. Cynically, I think Jeb would be named, but Guiliani was on my list as possible candidates. I think this harms his chances.
It does seem base incompetance or gross arragance that the Kerik nomination would get as far as it did. Gross arrogance would push on in the face of this, unless there is more going on than is currently visible. I do wonder if it was allowed to get that far because is suits the political agenda of the administration, but exactly how is an open question. It could be to bring negative light to Guiliani without directly attacking a man whose actions after 9/11 are still well thought of and well remembered by many on both sides.
I dunno. If there were an upside for Kerik in all of this, I could maybe buy it, but there isn’t. Everybody looks like a bit of a putz after this, and the only alterior motive that seems the least bit plausible to me is somebody trying to prevent themselves from looking like even more of a putz. If it isn’t Kerik trying to keep other things about his history under wraps, then this is what it is: A serious goof-up.