Made Men

Ladies and germs, your GOP front-runner, Rudy Walnuts:

In 2000, more than half the mayor’s cabinet had opposed Mr. Kerik’s appointment to be police commissioner. His detractors had noted, among other concerns, that Mr. Kerik did not have a college degree, a department requirement at the time for captains and above.

Mr. Giuliani waved off the dissenters. “I believe that the skill I have developed better than any other was surrounding myself with great people,” Mr. Giuliani wrote in his 2002 book, “Leadership.”

“Too many leaders overlook candidates with unusual résumés because of a failure of nerve,” Mr. Giuliani wrote. “By the time I appointed Bernie Kerik, I had hired so many people that I was immune to such criticisms.”

And what of Big Pussy Kerik, anyway?

Mr. Kerik earned $150,500 as commissioner but pleaded poverty. He turned to Lawrence V. Ray, a friend of a few years, who had an engaging manner and a big bankroll.

In 1998, Mr. Ray was the best man at Mr. Kerik’s wedding — and paid for much of the event. Weeks later, Mr. Kerik recommended Mr. Ray for a $100,000 job with Interstate Industrial Corporation, a New Jersey-based construction firm with tens of millions of dollars in city contracts.

Two years earlier, the owners, Peter and Frank DiTommaso, had paid more than $1 million to buy a transfer station from Edward Garafola, a mob soldier, and hoped to obtain a city operating license. But city investigators had found that the company employed mob figures and used mob-controlled trucking firms.

The DiTommasos, who adamantly and repeatedly have denied any ties to organized crime, hoped Mr. Ray could help resolve their problem with the Giuliani administration. Soon after being hired, Mr. Ray took Frank DiTommaso to meet with his friend the correction commissioner.

Mr. DiTommaso recalled the moment for city investigators: “Mr. Ray walked into the office, unannounced, just walked right in; Mr. Kerik got up and came around the desk and give him a big hug and a kiss.”

Within months, Interstate had hired Mr. Kerik’s brother and the commissioner had begun lobbying behind the scenes for Interstate.

One night in July 1999, he sat in Walker’s, a bar in downtown Manhattan, defending Interstate to Raymond V. Casey, a cousin of Mayor Giuliani who was chief of enforcement for the city commission that was reviewing Interstate’s license application. Later that year Mr. Kerik telephoned an assistant commissioner at the Department of Investigation to say that Interstate’s owners, as far as he knew, were clean of mob taint, according to a person familiar with her account.

And that September he had city detectives investigating the company meet Mr. Ray in his city office, a location that underlined for the men that the company had powerful friends.

The lobbying stopped on March 2, 2000, when Mr. Ray and Mr. Garafola, the mob soldier, were indicted on federal charges in an unrelated stock scheme. Top Giuliani officials suspended Interstate’s $85 million in city contracts.

Three weeks later, Mr. Kerik sat down for a nearly two-hour interview with top officials at the Department of Investigation. He talked about his relationship with Mr. Ray and the DiTommasos, about the hiring of his brother and the meeting at Walker’s.

He neglected to mention a key fact: Interstate was paying for $165,000 worth of renovations on his new apartment in the Bronx.

I still think the funniest part was Kerik's Ground Zero fuck-pad he had for his trysts with Hurricane Judith Regan. It's going to be fun watching Rudy run, hunched over in his Count Chocula posture, from the Mrs. Doubtfire schtick, and more seriously, from Fat Bernie's little butterball of corruption.



Yup. I can see why all those suckers paid good money to hear this clown yap about leadership and management and people skills, 'cause he clearly had them in spades. Every time this hump pulls some "Bernie who?" crap, that pic is going up. It's going to be a fun year. Run, Rudy, run!

Update: Almost forgot:



Hey, look! Rudy's got a new dress!