The point of this story from tomorrow's New York Times is that White House vetters didn't know as much about Bernard Kerik as they would have liked. Why? Besides the fact that the nomination was announced before the background check was completed, there's this:

Mr. Kerik, as New York City's police commissioner on Sept. 11, 2001, had been offered a high security clearance by federal officials so he could receive classified intelligence about the city's security, a law enforcement official said. But he failed to return a questionnaire needed for the F.B.I. to conduct a background check, and he never received that clearance, the law enforcement official said....

Mr. Kerik also failed to complete a required federal financial disclosure form in May 2003, when he left the country to spend three and a half months in Iraq trying to train Iraqi police officers, a law enforcement official said. The disclosure form, law enforcement officials said, might have turned up some of the financial problems that surfaced this month in connection with a condominium he owned in New Jersey.

Think about that: Several of the 9/11 hijackers were here on expired visas. And the guy we want to hire to prevent another 9/11 is a guy who didn't even fill out the required paperwork when he applied for a government job?

They knew he just blew that requirement off a year and a half ago, and they still picked him -- sorry, Bush still picked him.