Kerik

It just gets better:

Bush administration lawyers who vetted former New York City police Commissioner Bernard Kerik before President Bush named him to head the Homeland Security Department knew he had a “colorful past” but concluded that his long record of public service would outweigh questions about his conduct, a senior U.S. official told NBC News on Monday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the lawyers were aware that Kerik had been questioned in a civil lawsuit involving questions about an alleged extramarital affair with a corrections employee; the failure to properly report financial gifts on disclosure forms; and an arrest warrant issued after he failed to pay condo fees.

“The lawyers looked at all these issues,” said the official. "We believed they were not disqualifying."

So it's not that Kerik wasn't vetted properly, it's that a number of Bush's yes-men, eager to please, didn't want to speak up and torpedo their man's choice for head of DHS.

Or maybe they felt after watching Bush winning another election that this would be another case of image beating reality.

La Shawn Barber at Blogs for Bush tries to turn the deaf ear to the story, presenting this laughable line(you can find it yourself, there's no need to promote that sort of thing):

Since George Bush's re-election, the pressure to be mistake-free is off.

Any number of punchlines are yours for the writing.

I would rather point out that the whole Clinton-Lewinsky thing should have been no biggie in La Shawn's eyes. After all, since Clinton was re-elected, there was no pressure to be mistake free, right?