http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=269200 HOMELAND SECURITY – NANNY NONSENSE: President Bush's choice for Homeland Security chief, Bernard Kerik, withdrew his name from consideration on Friday after supposedly discovering he had once employed an undocumented immigrant as a nanny. White House officials echoed the claim, telling the New York Times that Kerik had undergone "a very thorough vetting process" that "looked at all the issues relating to his public, financial and personal background," but that "
t was issue alone…that terminated his nomination." As Josh Marshall notes, however, this claim implies the White House was ready and willing to fill one of the nation's top security positions with a rabidly partisan, backroom dealing shill for the pharmaceutical industry with a history of multiple abuses of power, alleged dirty dealings in Saudi Arabia, and stunning conflicts of interest, who was forced to testify just last Thursday in a controversial civil suit, had a warrant issued for his arrest as recently as 1998 and abandoned his critical post in Iraq.