One other point that’s there in the <$NoAd$>Bumiller article, though not quite centerstage, and has been dancing around the margins of much other reportage on the Cash-n-Kerik drama.
For the play-by-play and ins-n-outs and details, the nub was President Bush. He liked Kerik. He thought he was a tough guy. And he wanted to appoint him to the job. And he didn’t really want to hear any objections.
One graf from the piece …
Throughout the process, the Republican close to the administration said, everyone at the White House knew that Mr. Bush liked Mr. Kerik, placing him in the special category of “this guy’s our guy.” Mr. Bush admired Mr. Kerik for his service as New York City’s police commissioner on Sept. 11, 2001, for his willingness to try to train the police force in Iraq and for campaigning tirelessly for the president’s re-election.
(Note also in Bumiller’s piece that someone seems to be leaking volubly on Al Gonzales’s behalf about how much the AG-to-be grilled Kerik for skeletons in his closet; guess that didn’t work that well.)
The Post puts it a little more charitably …
In hindsight, according to people close to the White House, it appeared Bush or his aides allowed their affection for Kerik to cloud their judgment. Kerik traveled extensively on behalf of Bush’s reelection campaign and became a popular figure within the president’s circle. His hero status from the Sept. 11 attacks and his colorful personality, Bush advisers figured, would help inoculate Kerik from questions about his past.
Most papers have covered this point somewhere in their coverage. But none I think (correct me if I’m wrong) has devoted a whole news article to this dimension of the story, which is probably the most significant one.
