Rudy and Bernie Kerik, B.F.F.’s: "If a candidate values loyalty above all else, head for the hills."

NYT: Rudy and Bernie: B.F.F.’s
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: November 10, 2007

The past seven years have given us some helpful hints on what we want to avoid in the next president. I’m starting to make a list.

Quality to avoid No. 1: Loyalty.

Whenever you read that a candidate “values loyalty above all else” — run for the hills. Loyalty is a terribly important consideration if you’re choosing a pet, but not a cabinet member. How about if this time we try for a president who would recruit gifted people who can accomplish great things, as opposed to a room full of dopes who will never write tell-all memoirs?

Loyalty is on our mind today because of the indictment of Bernard Kerik, the really, really loyal former New York City police commissioner. Rudy Giuliani, who was entirely responsible for Kerik’s meteoric rise from mayoral chauffeur, has not seemed to draw any great lessons from his protégé’s spectacular fall. Giuliani did say that he made a “mistake in not clearing him effectively enough,” which sounds as if he is kicking himself for not sending a second squad of detectives out to interview Kerik’s neighbors. In fact, the lapse in the “clearing” procedure involved Giuliani ignoring the city investigations commissioner when he arrived with the news that Kerik was involved with a company suspected of having ties to organized crime....

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Giuliani had a great police commissioner, Bill Bratton, during his first term when all the critical crime-fighting apparatus for which the administration became so famous was put into place. But Bratton was not particularly loyal, in the sense that he did his job well, then enjoyed taking credit for it himself. And so he was gone....

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The Giuliani version of loyalty, which bears a terrifying resemblance to the George W. Bush brand of loyalty, is entirely about self-protection. An administration safe beneath the loyalty cone does not have to worry much about leaks to the press, or even whistle-blowing. People can screw up, or fail to achieve their missions, knowing the guy at the top will protect them as long as they put his well-being ahead of anything else....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/opinion/10collins.html?em&ex=1194843600&en=6f3eee461b61987f&ei=5087%0A