Rudy Giuliani: Another Crooked President In The Making?

WaPo:     April 08, 2007

When former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani urged President Bush to make Bernard B. Kerik the next secretary of homeland security, White House aides knew Kerik as the take-charge top cop from Sept. 11, 2001. But it did not take them long to compile an extensive dossier of damaging information about the would-be Cabinet officer.

They learned about questionable financial deals, an ethics violation, allegations of mismanagement and a top deputy prosecuted for corruption. Most disturbing, according to people close to the process, was Kerik's friendship with a businessman who was linked to organized crime. The businessman had told federal authorities that Kerik received gifts, including $165,000 in apartment renovations, from a New Jersey family with alleged Mafia ties.

Alarmed about the raft of allegations, several White House aides tried to raise red flags. But the normal investigation process was short-circuited, the sources said. Bush's top lawyer, Alberto R. Gonzales, took charge of the vetting, repeatedly grilling Kerik about the issues that had been raised. In the end, despite the concerns, the White House moved forward with his nomination -- only to have it collapse a week later.                                       -- David Kurtz

   This is all that the United States would need. Another Republican president who would appoint his own field of crooked friends!

A U.S. Marine In Iraq And A conversation With One Of His Parents

   Once in a while I go through the political website's/blogs and browse through the comments section after certain articles just to see what the readers have to say. I particularly look for service members who are either in Iraq or have been there. I also keep an eye out for comments for comments from parents who have kids in Iraq.

   This comment comes from Talking Points Memo

On April 8, 2007 - 12:46pm Deanie Mills said:

When my son deployed to Iraq in Nov. '04 with the Marine Corps to fight in the battle to clear insurgents out of Fallujah, we were all told that "the next six months" were going to be crucial, because the Iraqis were going to vote.

When he deployed in Jan. '06, we were all told that "the next six months" were crucial because a government was being established.

The first thing my son talked about when he called on sat phones from rooftops watching for snipers or huddled around a campfire, he said that the most discouraging thing about the deployment was that it seemed "Fallujah is as bad as it was before we went in," because all the insurgents who'd fled to outlying areas had only crept back into the beleagured city.

Three weeks into his deployment, the mosque at Samarra was bombed, and he and the Marines in the Anbar fought for their lives for seven miserable months, and my son came home angry because he felt as if their fight and their losses "has all been a waste." All they were doing was "going out every day and waiting to get blown up."

My nephew had similar observations in HIS three deployments to Iraq with the Marines. And "the next six months" were always crucial.

Now, another beloved nephew has just deployed to Baghdad with the army, and hey! Guess what!

THE NEXT SIX MONTHS ARE CRUCIAL.

I don't give a damn what John McCain says anymore because he flat-out lied when he pretended that things were better because he could stroll through a marketplace.

I don't know a single Marine who has had the luxury of STROLLING anywhere in that godforsaken country.

And now, thanks to this miserable escalation, my son's unit orders have been changed, to go back a FOURTH time (thankfully, he'll be out by then, if they let him)--and he's calling me in despair, wanting to know what the Democrats are doing to end this bloodbath and get his buddies out of that meatgrinder.

I cannot describe the rage I feel whenever I see Bush and anyone backing him using troops as some kind of stage-prop, talking about how the next six months are crucial and we should "support the troops."

The threatened chaos IS ALREADY HAPPENING, and our men and women are just caught in the crossfire. I don't mind a phased redeployment and benchmarks for the Iraqi govt., but the truth is that the military CAN'T stay much longer because they're stretched to the breaking point.

We can support them all by getting them the hell out of there and rewarding the politicians who pray to the god of patriotism by throwing them out of office or not electing them in the first place.

 

Tags: U.S. Marines Iraq John McCain