Why Bernie Kerik is a Disaster

Why Bernie Kerik is a Disaster
By Doug Ireland, ILCA Associate Member
WE NEW YORKERS KNOW: BERNIE KERIK'S A DISASTER
Sentient residents of the Big Apple know that the appointment of Bernie Kerik, our town's former police commissioner, as Homeland Security Secretary is a disaster, despite the media hosannahs about his nomination (CBS Evening News was particularly gushy on Friday night).
Putting this corrupt Starsky--who happens to be Rudy Giuliani's business partner-- in charge of the civil liberties of Americans and visitors to these shores--given the sweeping powers the agencies within the DHS now have, thanks to the Patriot Act and a host of Bush executive orders--is a mad idea. The shoot-first-ask-questions-later mentality of drug cop culture, in which everyone with a dark skin is presumed guilty until proven innocent--and in which Kerik is steeped-- is not the right training ground for this sensitive post; if I were a Muslim in America, I'd be scared stiff. And Kerik--like his boss Giuliani--showed little regard for the niceties of the Constitution when it came to imposing civil liberties discipline on the boys in blue.
Kerik, whose Iraq assignmnent won him the nickname "the Baghdad Terminator," has in the past advocated assassination as a U.S. Policy in Iraq. But when Kerik when he took the Iraq appointment, it was announced he would serve for 6 months, but inexplicably left after only 3 months (and one can hardly argue that that was because he finished the job of training/organizing the Baghdad police force early). Why the brevity of his Iraq job?...