Electablog* U.S. Ambassador to Cyberspace
I should begin by explaining that the following is neither a story from The Onion nor a transparent attempt by media consultants to distract us from the Bernie Kerik story – which is one Ford Bronco away from hitting the big time.
Bigger than a Bronco — an Explorer. Via Atrios:
September 16, 2000 NY Daily News:
A homeless woman lying on the ramp of an upper East Side parking garage was crushed to death early yesterday when she was run over by a mammoth sport utility vehicle, police said.
The driver, real estate executive Anthony Bergamo, told investigators he did not see the woman from his driver’s seat.
Bergamo was driving a 5,770-pound Ford Expedition.
Medics pronounced the unidentified woman dead at the scene.
An autopsy determined that she died of crushing injuries to her chest, said a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner.
The death was ruled accidental and Bergamo, 54, who manages the Milford Plaza hotel in Times Square for its owner, real estate magnate Howard Milstein, was not charged.
Who was police commissioner then? Why, Bernard Kerik. And who is Anthony Bergamo? Oh, THAT Anthony Bergamo…
Rescue workers were combing through the World Trade Center rubble around the clock when Mr. Kerik called Anthony Bergamo, a well-connected vice chairman of the Milstein family real estate company and a police buff, and asked for help finding a place for the workers to rest during breaks, the executive said.
The family owned Liberty View, a 28-story yellow brick tower two blocks southwest of the trade center at the corner of West Street and Third Place.
According to the executive, who knows Mr. Bergamo, the vice chairman arranged for Mr. Kerik to have the use of an apartment there. Several apartments in the buildings had been used by rescue workers on breaks, and by Red Cross staff who were treating them, in the months after 9/11, according to a real estate executive.
I’m glad that Kerik never got the job of Sec of Homeland Security–obviously too reckless and an easy target for blackmail.
That said, the massive media attention to this guy AFTER he dropped out of sontention may signal big trouble for some other uppardly mobile pols…as Mickey Kaus writes:
“Has Hillary committed any “intimate transgressions”? We’ll soon find out! Hasn’t Bernard Kerik performed a huge service for journalism (and the Republican party)? Because of his sacrifice, we now have a dramatically lowered standard for when the New York Times will report the intimate details of public figures’ private lives. Kerik was having “clandestine love affairs” in a Battery Park City apartment he apparently paid for. The Times first reported these “intimate transgressions”–and named one of Kerik’s partners, Titian-tressed titan Judith Regan–even after Kerik had withdrawn from consideration as Homeland Security secretary citing an illegal-nanny problem. … Somwhere, Jeffrey Toobin is turning over in his grave. Toobin argued absurdly that a politician’s sex life is off limits to journalists’ because it “tells you absolutely nothing about their performance in office”. But Kerik wasn’t even going to perform in office! He was out. … The Times, a principled organization, will presumably apply the Kerik precedent in years to come when Democratic figures are involved. I especially look forward to the paper’s multiple-reporter investigation of Hillary Clinton’s erotic life when she runs for Senate in 2006. All of her housekeepers need to be produced, of course, and if she has any lovers other than her faithful husband we’ll find that out too! … P.S.: Plus, following the Kerik precedent, it will be enough if “someone who spoke to” Hillary about any relationship can vouch for it. Hearsay evidence about sex is good enough for the Times! …
Mickey clearly has no clue about the level of stuff that’s coming up, if he thinks it’s just about sex.