Posted on: Sunday, December 19, 2004

EDITORIAL
Homeland Security: Back to Square One

The budget of the Department of Homeland Security is $37 billion and, we'd expect, growing. To run it, we deserve someone with superior administrative skills, outside-the-box thinking, impeccable honesty and a squeaky-clean past.

Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, clearly wasn't that man. The media were disclosing his shortcomings before the FBI had read his incomplete disclosure forms.

President Bush says he and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani remain on great terms, but White House operatives are suggesting Kerik got as far as he did because Bush assumed Giuliani had thoroughly vetted the former cop. This episode will hurt Giuliani's chances for the presidential nomination in 2008.

Insiders say the White House, normally careful, also was hasty because of Bush's personal enthusiasm for Kerik, a desire to quickly fill this critical post and an apparent lack of candor from Kerik himself.

The White House was smart to announce Kerik's withdrawal on a Friday night and to make sure the reason was a "nanny problem," which has tripped up better nominees than Kerik: Zoe Baird, nominated for attorney general by President Clinton, and Labor Department nominee Linda Chavez in the first administration of George W. Bush.

Following Kerik out the door were emerging issues about his private-sector profits from dealings with the Homeland Security Department, ethics and influence accusations from his tenure as New York's top cop, an old bankruptcy, and more.

That's too bad. Kerik had built a reputation for being smart, tough and cool under pressure. He was at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001, and he performed admirably. Running 22 disparate agencies, however, will require more than a few good days.

The next nomination for the Homeland Security post ought to be based less on star power and more on management and political skills.