In a NY Times article about Bernard Kerik, I came across this passage (italics mine):
Mr. Giuliani said he planned to appoint Mr. Kerik as first deputy correction commissioner.Mr. Kerik, who wrote of this in his autobiography, "The Lost Son," was taken aback; he was a year removed from being a police detective.
"Mayor, I appreciate your confidence in me, I really do," he said. "But I ran a jail. One jail. Rikers is like 10 jails."
Just do it, the mayor replied.
Mr. Kerik followed Mr. Giuliani downstairs to a dimly lighted room. There waited Mr. Giuliani's boyhood chum Peter J. Powers, who was first deputy mayor, and other aides. One by one, they pulled Mr. Kerik close and kissed his cheek.
"I wonder if he noticed how much becoming part of his team resembled becoming part of a mafia family," Mr. Kerik wrote. "I was being made."
Those are Kerik's words, not mine. Mind you, the kissing doesn't seem like a spontaneous celebration, but a previously performed ritual.
Truly creepy.
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Conservatives seem to value loyalty over competence and credentials. See also Frank Rich's Greatest Story Ever Sold explanation of who filled the regional and departmental bureaucrat position in the initial US provisional government in Iraq. Loyal Republicans, fundamentalist Christians and Bush Administration supporters trumped subject matter expertise.