Boxer criticizes vetting of security nominee

<Sen. Barbara Boxer warned Monday that Americans "should feel concerned" about the administration's "very bad job of vetting" Bernard Kerik, who withdrew as President Bush's nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security last week within days of his selection because of questions about his career and personal life.

"They're not doing their job over there," Boxer, D-Calif., said of the White House in reaction to the embarrassing developments over Kerik, whose troubles included a failure to disclose immigration problems and pay taxes on a family nanny -- and may involve more serious published allegations of extramarital affairs and improper gifts from supporters.

Boxer, speaking at a wide-ranging press conference Monday in San Francisco, also said she supported calls for federal legislation to stiffen drug testing in major league baseball if its leaders didn't act to do so in the wake of the grand jury revelations in the BALCO steroids case. The senator also said she thought Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's first-year performance was positive in some areas and disappointing in others.

But Boxer, who was re-elected last month to a third term, was most critical of the Bush administration on a variety of issues from the flawed nomination of Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the war in Iraq.

The senator said Kerik's failure to disclose his problems were "a terrible reflection on this man, who was such a hero during 9/11." But she added the administration apparently did "a very bad job of vetting; the American people should be concerned." >

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/14/MNG71ABH1V1.DTL

now if we can only get our other 43 senators doing this, we might get somewhere