Looking Forward
Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik all but admitted having affairs with two women, as the fallout from his failed bid to become homeland security czar continued to explode yesterday. The women - publishing tycoon Judith Regan and Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero - were simultaneously involved in extramarital affairs with Kerik, sources told the Daily News. In the harrowing weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Kerik romanced both women at a secret Battery Park City apartment, according to the sources, who have intimate knowledge of the liaisons. As the women kept silent yesterday, Kerik held an impromptu press conference outside the Times Square offices of his friend and business partner Rudy Giuliani.
Wearing a Yankees cap, Kerik, 49, acknowledged "very close" relationships with both women.
And there was also the fact that the background investigation reportedly revealed that Kerik kept first wife a secret (and apparently took up with the second one before being divorced from the first).
As everybody knew, there had to be a sex scandal involved to get Kerik to withdraw his nomination, because corruption is just business as usual in the Republican circles these days, as are evil foreigners who dupe honest Americans into paying them under the table. (And now we get to imagine the real story behind Linda Chavez's failed nomination -- I'm guessing that it involved a torrid affair with Thomas Sowell which led to their involvement in a mob-controlled organ smuggling operation.)
But as Scottie McClellan said about 30 times in yesterday's press briefing," I understand your interest in looking back, but we are moving forward to name a new nominee as quickly as possible," and "this matter has been now put to rest."
So, in the interests of looking forward and finding a new nominee, let's first examine what attracted Bush to Kerik (besides that big, burly frame and sexy bald head), so we can suggest a suitable replacement:
First, from the Newsweek story "Enter the 'Mayhem Magnet'" ("Out with the mild pol. In with the streetwise leg breaker") we learn that Bush liked Kerik's self-madeness. He is one of the most colorful self-made men to arrive in Washington in a long time; his story seems to have captured the fancy of President Bush, who may have been born on third base himself but favors Horatio Algers (like Secretary of State-nominee Condo-leezza Rice and Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales). Kerik is a black-and-white loyalist, another quality valued by Bush.
So, Bush likes colorful personalities who overcame hardship and adversity by lifting themselves up by their own bootstraps -- possibly just because he enjoys moralizing stories (they are good examples for the commoners), and possibly because they manage to deflect attention from his own silver spoon. And, Kerik had the reputation of being tough guy, not afraid to break rules or heads to get the job done -- and that's apparently the image Bush thought would be cool for our head of Homeland Security. He (Bush) liked the idea of Kerik—the self-made tough guy—and he dismissed as gossip or press carping newspaper stories about Kerik's bending the rules. [...] Kerik's somewhat cavalier attitude is best captured by his time in Iraq. After the invasion in the spring of 2003, Kerik was sent to Baghdad to organize the Iraqi police. But Kerik didn't seem to show much interest in Iraqis, said a senior U.S. official who worked with him. He appeared to enjoy going on night raids against "bad guys" with some South African mercenaries who were serving as bodyguards to U.S. officials.
And didn't our Mystery Guest from yesterday say that it was this kind of experience that made Kerik "uniquely suited to the urgency of the task" of being Homeland Security czar? If only African merc wannabe Mark Steyn wasn't a foreigner (despite his belief that he's one of "us"), he might make the perfect replacement for Bernie. On his screen saver, Kerik had a photo of a big house he had just bought in New Jersey that he said was across the street from former New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms's. Kerik told his colleagues he planned to be in Baghdad for three months while the house was undergoing renovations. "So," the official says he told Kerik, "you're here because you needed a place to go while they're doing renovations on your house." Kerik grinned and cocked a finger as if to say, "You got it." A spokesman for Kerik said that story was "absurd" and that Kerik was a patriot.
A patriot who came to Iraq for six months to train Iraqi policemen, and left after three months with the Iraqis untrained. But still, a patriot.
And besides being tough, Kerik talked tough, which is apparently another thing George Bush liked about him. Here's some of that tough talk courtesy of Salon -- it's about that time last spring when Kerik suggested that if Kerry was elected President, the terrorists would attack us again for sure. It was the same blunt line of attack ("Democrats = mass death") that Vice President Dick Cheney, among others, honed during the closing months of the campaign. But Kerik was the first prominent Republican to make the charge, telling the New York Daily News on April 22, "If you put Sen. Kerry in the White House, I think you are going to see that happen." (Months later Kerik claimed the Daily News had misquoted him, but he never requested a correction.) In late July Kerik modified his stance slightly, telling CNN that a Kerry presidency would not necessarily invite another terrorist attack, but the Democrat would be weak in dealing with one if it came: "I fear another attack, and I fear that attack with a John Kerry, Senator Kerry, being in office responding to it."
So, you can see why George Bush liked Bernie Kerik.
But I guess this is looking back, and we're supposed to be looking forward and finding a new candidate. So, I suggest that the White House nominate Judith Regan for the position of Secretary of Homeland Security.
Let me outline my reasons for this suggestion:
First of all, Judith too has one of those rags-to-riches stories that George Bush can so identify with. (Well, she was never actually in rags, but apparently her being a middleclass girl who had to attend Vassar with members of the upperclass was really hard on her.)
"What is she so angry about? That is the $64,000 question," says a former boyfriend. "Her politics, a childhood of deprivation, not being considered an insider in publishing … in some ways, anger animates her life."
And, as a NY Metro piece explains, while she is probably the most sucessful editor in the book business, she is also an eternal victim -- one who will kill you if you mess with her. So, her story is like Kerik's, only with the added suspense of not knowing if today she will be betrayed by a man, or cut his balls off. While victimhood is certainly a big theme for her, she adds a twist by being an avenger too. She may be the most combative victim in history.
And like Kerik, she is a tough. And she talks even tougher -- in fact, she's a much tougher talker than anybody currently serving in the Pentagon.
From Vanity Fair again: She sees herself as a warrior: she is fond of quoting Patton (at one point, she had taped to her computer "The courageous man is the man who forces himself, in spite of his fear, to carry on"), and in her home had a painting of the biblical heroine Judith, who delivered Israel from a foreign army by first beguiling and then beheading the Assyrian commander Holofernes. [...] It is easy to see how Regan—who kept photos of herself dressed as a man around the office, and has been known to shout "I have the biggest cock in the building!" at a meeting when she felt her colleagues were wimping out on an editorial decision—might feel she needs to act like a man, or, rather, a caricature of a man, to come out on top.
And while Kerik allegedly bragged to his buddies about his wild nights with the ladies, he can't hold a candle to Judith: At one point Regan told this particular editor, "I'm on so many hormones I could hump the doorknob." "Or," said the editor, "she'd say something like, 'My clit is this big'—and hold out her fingers."
Even Kerik told Vanity Fair that she's tough, and willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, even if what it takes is pretty disgusting: Notes former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, whose memoir, The Lost Son, was published by ReganBooks in 2001, "She is brash, very assertive, extremely demanding, and talks like a man…. But you know what? I've run the largest police departments in the country, I've run the largest jail. Sometimes it takes a person like that to get things done." [...] Kerik's memoir came out right after 9/11—when Kerik was everywhere in the news—thanks to Regan's insistence that he keep his November 2001 publication date.
Although pushing the New York City police commissioner to meet his deadline so that his book could be pegged to the most devastating terrorist attack in American history might not have been in good taste, good taste has never been Regan's forte.
And I think it's thank kind of opportunism and willingness to make suckers of the American public for a good cause (selling them on the Bush administration's War on Terror) that we need in a Homeland Security chief.
And despite her high-heels and soft-focus photos, Regan is lot scarier than Kerik, which should serve to keep those terrorists in line. There is no question she rules by intimidation. "I know this sounds ridiculous, but there was always … this vague sense she might actually do physical damage," says another former editor, who recalls this slightly alarming tale: When Arsenio Hall lost his talk show in 1994, she campaigned for the slot. "When [a Fox executive] finally told her she wasn't getting the job, we all heard her screaming in her office. 'You know why? Because he has a small dick, and he's afraid I'm going to eat it. And then I'm gonna eat his testicles. Then I'm going to eat into his body cavity … ' It was the most incredible thing I'd heard."
And she's a family-values kind of person, despite the out-of-wedlock child with the convicted drug dealer, all the affairs, the very nasty divorce, and the talk about her clit. See, she's anti-Clenis, and that makes her pro-family values.
From the NY Metro piece: The book she was promoting was a relative trifle for her, a parody of Monica's Story called Monica's Untold Story, written by "Anonymous." [...]("This cautionary fable," Regan says, in promotion materials for the book, "is a parody of the nightmarish materialism that . . . threatens to destroy America, as we pursue money, sex, and power at the expense of family life, duty, and goodness"). Indeed, it seems reasonably likely that Anonymous is Judith Regan herself.
And here's more about Judith's defense of personal morality and traditional values -- it's part of a reader commentary sent to BuzzFlash in 2001: Tonight, I witnessed the most horrible thing I have yet seen. Yes, it involved Bill Clinton. Regan looked straight into the camera and for almost 10 minutes, delivered a pseudo stream-of-consciousness poetry riff mocking Clinton. Referring to his sad boyhood, she mocked his loneliness, then proclaimed that he built himself up and called himself KING, because "I am rich and I can do what I want!" She likened him to the cast out Socks, and envisioned him an old man meeting up with Socks at 125th street, both holding tin cups. Over and over again, she spit out the word KING, mocking his childhood, his manhood and his humanity. In the meantime, clips of Bill played in the background. Then described him alone without his handlers, no mother, no father, his wife in NY while Monica Lewinsky slept in the same city. Then she started on Hugh Rodham, and proclaimed this was the time of PIGS, just spitting out the word over and over. There were other vicious words, but I can't recall them. I think I blocked them out. It was incredibly vicious. What was especially appalling was how she took the most painful aspects of Bill's background--his truly grievous childhood--and twisted them, using them to mock him. If this wasn't the "politics of personal destruction" I don't know how else you could describe this horrific display.
Hey, isn't that the kind of viciousness and cruelty Bush wants in his Homeland Security secretary? It's true that Judith is a psycho-bitch and the ultimate boss from hell, and if she was in charge of Homeland Security, she would undoubtedly cause at least 90% of the department's employees to quit or develop nervous breakdowns within her first month on the job. But I think her willingness to screw Peggy Noonan (but probably only in a business sense) shows that she is the kind of evil genius we need if we are really going to get tough with terror. One notorious story of Regan's Machiavellian business dealings has made the rounds. At the height of speculation about whether or not Hillary Clinton would run for the Senate, Regan called Washington speechwriter Peggy Noonan's agent, Joni Evans. (Noonan had written a critical article about Clinton in The Wall Street Journal.) Regan asked Evans if Noonan could write a book about Hillary in three months. (Typical of Regan. As author Peter Lance put it, "She runs her imprint like a newspaper.") Evans and Noonan agreed; a price was set. Noonan turned in the manuscript on time, to deafening editorial silence. After weeks of delay, a 14-page list of criticisms arrived on Evans's desk. Toward the end of the letter, Regan stipulated that, even if all the noted problems were addressed, the book was such a disappointment that she wasn't planning on paying the author the remainder of her advance. Evans immediately found two other publishers willing to buy the book and pay accordingly. After she informed Regan of the other offers, Evans received a letter stating she would be sued. Eventually, the two sides agreed that Evans would not take the book elsewhere if Regan accepted the manuscript as submitted and paid the full amount immediately.
So, in conclusion, I think that Judith Regan is just the kind of cabinent member that George Bush had been looking for, and if they already have somebody in mind for the Homeland Security position, I think she should replace Dick Cheney.
1:34:30 AM | 
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