[Airbornelawyer]

Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc

!. That is not a beard and he is not in Afghanistan. He will be expected to lead and give orders to FBI, SS, etc. agents - ever see how they look? There is a reason Dick Marcinko was not the commander of the Old Guard (besides the fact he was Navy). Those very same agents that implement the strategy you speak of.

It is a short boxed beard. If he were in Afghanistan, I suspect he would let it grow out more. Hamid Karzai, who had about the same length while in Europe, did when he returned to Afghanistan.

Also, the FBI is not under DHS and in any event, operated effectively for him when he headed the DOJ Criminal Division. As for the USSS, USCG, etc., I know you are not implying that (a) they are little more than ceremonial and (b) they would be so unprofessional as to let someone's facial hair impair their ability to do their job. This really strikes me as an utterly irrelevant issue.

Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc

2. He may have only been a judge a short while, but I will bet he spent most of his life preparing for it - so he has been thinking like a judge for a while. Do you think he would have given the same opinion you cite with another 3 years on the bench?

Before questioning his integrity by implying he would be seduced by some judicial dark side, do you have some reason to believe he would not have given the same opinion in 3 years' time? And if he had indeed spent his whole life preparing for a judgeship, why give it up? Federal judges have life tenure. Absent impeachment, they cannot be removed. They either retire or die.

Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc

3. If Whitewater is any indication of his abilities or his hard-nose, Usama has about as much to worry about as Shrillary. How many people went to jail in that deal?

Fifteen or sixteen. During the period Chertoff was involved in Whitewater:

1. Webster L. Hubbell, Associate Attorney General of the United States
2. Bill McCuen, former Secretary of State of Arkansas
3. James McDougal, Whitewater Development Corp., Madison Bank & Trust and Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association
4. Susan McDougal, Whitewater Development Corp., Madison Bank & Trust and Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association
5. David Hale, Judge, Municipal Court of Little Rock
6. Christopher Wade, Whitewater real estate broker
7. Stephen Smith, former aide to Gov. Clinton
8. Neal Ainley, President, Perry County Bank
9. Larry Kuca, Madison real estate agent
10. Robert Palmer, Madison appraiser
11. John Latham, CEO, Madison Bank & Trust

Subsequently, five more convictions were handed down for Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, William J. Marks Sr., John Haley, Eugene Fitzhugh and Charles Matthews. Two Arkansas bankers, Robert Hill and Herbert Branscum, escaped conviction due to a mistrial after a jury deadlock. Of course, this is all irrelevant, as Chertoff was special counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee, not in the Independent Counsel's Office. The committee's role was an investigation, not a prosecution.

As a general matter, though, by your logic Rommel was a terrible general because the Germans lost WW2. And do you judge Col. Simons' abilities based on the failure of Son Tay to rescue any POWs?

As for what is an indication of Chertoff's abilities, he is a highly regarded prosecutor. In 1986, Chertoff won a series of convictions of members of the Commission "La Cosa Nostra," including Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno (capo of the Genovese family), Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo (capo of the Luccese family) and Carmine "Junior" Persico (capo of the Colombo family). He won convictions of Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann (bank fraud, tax evasion), "Crazy Eddie" Antar (racketering, securities fraud; apparently his prices were so low because he was a crook), Arthur and Irene Seale (kidnapping and murder of an Exxon executive) and former New York State Chief Judge Sol Wachtler (sending interstate kidnapping threats). These are just a few high-profile cases.

Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc

If he's so great, how come he wasn't choice #1?

A. How do you know that he wasn't, but turned it down, only to have the President come back and ask again after the Kerik fiasco?

B. Even if not, is there some iron-clad rule that there is only one qualified pick for each job?

C. Who says "he's so great"? Maybe he's great, maybe he's just really good, maybe he's merely qualified. But without knowing much about him, you pronounced him a bad choice because he is a judge and has a short beard. I noted a certain illogic to those conclusions and provided some supplemental information. I don't personally know whether he's a great choice, but a number of people whose opinions I respect and who know him have praised his nomination. These include people like former prosecutor Andy McCarthy, who led the team against Sheikh Omar Abdurrahman and who was a longtime critic of the Clinton Justice Department's "law enforcement" attitude toward terrorism. McCarthy described Chertoff's nomination thusly:

Mike Chertoff ... is an absolutely superb choice for this post. He is smart, he has a creative linear mind, and he is up to the management challenge -- which is the biggest challenge facing this sprawling agency. Best of all, in contrast to former NYC police commissioner Bernie Kerik and some of the other state law enforcement people whose names have been floated, he knows the federal system inside and out -- including the sharp elbows of its competing agencies. Once he takes the reins, you are never again like to read another story about how other agencies like the FBI are running bureaucratic rings around, and seizing turf from, DHS.