December 19, 2004
DENNIS FRANZ WILL PLAY HIM IN THE MOVIE:
In Kerik, Bush Saw Values Crucial to Post-9/11 World (ELISABETH BUMILLER, 12/19/04, NY Times)
President Bush first met Bernard B. Kerik near the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center on Sept. 14, 2001, a day that instantly changed Mr. Bush's relationship with a city he had never much liked.More important for Mr. Kerik, who was then the New York City police commissioner, the day forged his relationship with the president and helped lead to his nomination to Mr. Bush's cabinet this month.
The bond between the president and the former police commissioner was a major factor, Republicans say, in Mr. Bush's decision to nominate Mr. Kerik for homeland security secretary. Although no one has suggested that the relationship was close, Republicans called it warm and based on equal parts self-interest and admiration. [...]
[M]r. Kerik, Republicans said, was just the kind of plain-talking law-and-order man held in regard by the president.
"The president loves cops," said a Republican close to the White House who insisted on anonymity because he did not want the president and his advisers to know he was talking about the collapse of a cabinet nomination. "They're not pretentious, they do a hard job, they don't get paid a lot of money, they're real people and they live in a world that is fairly black and white, with good guys and bad guys. And that's the way President Bush looks at the world."
All of which, as cop memoir after cop show has shown us over the years, makes them susceptible to the kind of corner-cutting and moral compromise that Mr. Kerik is accused of. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 19, 2004 8:08 AM
Cops in Ridgefield Park, NJ make $100,000/yr in salary and benefits after 5 years on the force. That buys a lot of doughnuts.
Cops have incredible undeserved PR. It is a very easy job to do for the most part, far easier than being a fireman, a soldier, a pilot or even a schoolteacher(they have to deal with criminals without a firearm and a radio). Most cops are little different from the criminals they are hired to arrest, if anything the criminals behave with greater honor, dignity and integrity.
Posted by: Bart at December 19, 2004 8:17 AMOf all the things you've posted, that is definitely the weirdest.
Posted by: Ali Choudhury at December 19, 2004 9:42 AMThe President also loves: cowboys, bikes, giving people nicknames. Did this guy get out of 10th grade?
Posted by: PSoTD at December 19, 2004 10:20 AMPTSD:
Ever look at the Nielsen ratings? America loves the same folks as the President. No one loves windsurfers.
Posted by: oj at December 19, 2004 10:24 AMBart:
I have to disagree with you there. Virtually every policeman I have known, whether as a neighbor, friend, or someone talking to me through a car window, has been a credit to their profession.
Like being a pilot, being a policeman is scads of routine punctuated by moments of terror the rest of us virtually never know.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at December 19, 2004 12:14 PMI guess you don't come from the NYC Metro area where law enforcement is entirely about revenue enhancement, where municipalities deliberately hire dysfunctional people to become police in the same way that collection agencies do(and for the same reasons), and where small-time boodling is a way of police life(a bookie I know hires off-duty cops to handle collections).
Posted by: Bart at December 19, 2004 1:59 PMThat's because New York is a cesspit.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at December 20, 2004 10:58 AMChris,
The patterns I am describing are commonplace in some of the most affluent suburbs in America. And NYC is the best large city in America by far.
Posted by: Bart at December 21, 2004 7:06 AM