THE EXODUS continues from the Bush administration. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge announced Nov. 30 that he would be leaving his post as America's top security official after a mediocre two years on the job. Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security has not progressed far from the bureaucratic tangle that it was when Ridge became its first secretary in January 2003.
On Dec. 2, President Bush named Bernard Kerik, the former commissioner of the New York Police Department, as the new secretary. Bush depicted Kerik as a veteran lawman who knows firsthand that terrorists can strike at any time. Bush didn't go into detail, however, on the fact that Kerik is staggeringly unqualified for the job for which he has been tapped.
The Department of Homeland Security was created in January 2003 as the largest new department in the past 50 years. It integrated dozens of agencies previously housed in other departments and began demanding coordination between its 180,000 employees. During Ridge's term, institutional resistance in the bureaucracy, as well as the novelty of the department's purpose and the agency's general enormousness, overwhelmed the secretary, a competent but unexceptional administrator.
While many factors have contributed to Homeland Security's troubles, Tom Ridge did not wield enough clout to fully cohere the department around central goals. The former governor of Pennsylvania, Ridge worked without the authority he needed to demand obedience from career Washington bureaucrats. Clearly, the next secretary of homeland security needs to fit a particular mold: a respected figure, familiar with Washington and with the full trust of the president, who could bestride his post like a colossus, bash skulls and make his victims thank him.
Unfortunately, Bernard Kerik fits no part of this description. He has never worked in Washington. However much he looks vaguely pro-wrestler-like, Kerik does not command the type of respect that the next secretary needs to have. Worse yet, he is clearly not the president's first choice. According to numerous media reports, Bush only selected Kerik after former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani personally petitioned the president; The New York Daily News quoted a White House source as saying that Giuliani "cashed in a chip" to see Kerik appointed. Nothing damages Kerik's prestige -- which he needs to do his job well -- like the well-founded assertion that the president was talked into choosing him as a political favor.
But even more troubling than Kerik's lack of clout is his lack of experience in actually fighting terrorism. As NYPD commissioner on Sept. 11, 2001, Kerik was rightly hailed for his department's response to the attacks on the World Trade Center. But Kerik has little experience working to actually prevent such attacks. Kerik was NYPD commissioner for less than a year and a half, during which time Giuliani kept counterterrorism measures mostly in his own hands. Kerik left his NYPD post three months after Sept. 11 to promote his autobiography, make speeches and campaign for Bush. He has almost no discernable record in counterterrorism. With Bernard Kerik heading Homeland Security, we can't be sure more attacks won't happen, but after thousands have already died at least we know the response will go well.
It is a tall order to find a person who is especially qualified to be homeland security secretary. Most officials with close relationships to the president have expertise in other areas and have taken different jobs, making it difficult to appoint someone with both experience and prestige. But several candidates better than Kerik come to mind. Giuliani fits the bill but has his own ambitions and would have been unlikely to take such a thankless job. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who drafted the legislation to create DHS and pushed for it in Congress even while the White House resisted, could have also been a good choice. Raymond Kelly, who took over for Kerik as NYPD commissioner in January 2002 and has aggressively forwarded counterterrorism programs while Kerik has been promoting his book on Oprah, could do the job better than Kerik.
In the absence of a good Republican for the post (Lieberman is a Democrat, and Kelly has worked for Democrats), President Bush has refused to reach across the aisle and has instead staked a further claim to his party's rhetorical ownership of Sept. 11. Once again, he's placed the politics that keep him popular ahead of the policies that keep us safe. Indeed, Kerik served as a dutiful mouthpiece for Bush rhetoric on the campaign trail, commenting on Oct. 20, 2003, "political criticism is our enemies' best friend." Wrong. Our enemies' best friend is a security chief who's not up to the job.
Michael Slaven's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at mslaven@cavalierdaily.com.
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