Bush's pick for top security job
By Bill Schneider
CNN Political Unit
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- If President Bush is looking for a figure who embodies his message, he couldn't do any better than he did this week with the political Play of the Week.
What is the Bush message? In a word -- security.
So he picked a security man for the nation's top security post.
"He knows something about security," said Bush in October. "He's lived security all his life."
Bernard Kerik has been a private security guard in Saudi Arabia, a jail warden, a bodyguard, a narcotics detective and New York City's top cop.
"In 1986, I stood in this very arena. I raised my right hand and was sworn in as a New York City police officer," Kerik said in a speech at the RNC convention in August. "Fourteen years later... Mayor Giuliani appointed me as the police commissioner of this great city."
Kerik was there, right there, on 9/11 with his patron.
"I grabbed the arm of then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and I said to him, 'Bernie, thank God George Bush is our president,'" former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said in a speech at the RNC convention.
September 11, 2001, was the defining moment of the Bush presidency, and of Kerik's career.
"I know what is at stake," said Kerik Friday. "On September 11th, 2001, I witnessed firsthand the very worst of humanity and its very best."
Another issue has come to define President Bush: Iraq. Guess who Bush sent to Baghdad to organize Iraq's new police force and to make the case that Iraq and 9/11 are linked?
"I understand, probably more than anyone, what a threat Iraq was ... I was beneath [both] of the towers on September 11th when they fell," Kerik said in October.
Kerik was Giuliani's man.
Now he's Bush's man.
"Bernie Kerik understands the duties that came to America on September the 11th," said Bush Friday.
Quite a career move -- and it wins the political Play of the Week.
New Yorkers are very happy with the choice of Kerik. Even the Democrats are happy. Why? Federal money.
Sen. Chuck Schumer said, "I am confident that Bernie Kerik will treat New York a whole lot better than homeland security has treated us in the past.''
