This seems to be the day for Cheap Little Republican Sleazeballs to be getting their long overdue comeuppance for breathtaking lapses from anything resembling proper behavior. Besides our oklahoma judge we now have Bernie Kerik, the only person I know of whom it can be said that Michael “Skeletor” Jerkoff Chertoff is demonstrably better than:

A year and a half after his Homeland Security nomination sank over ethics questions, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik pleaded guilty Friday to charges he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in gifts while he was a top city official.

Kerik pleaded guilty to a pair of misdemeanors in a deal that spared him any jail time. He instead was ordered to pay $221,000 in fines at the 10-minute hearing.

Kerik acknowledged accepting $165,000 worth of renovations on his Bronx apartment from a company attempting to do business with the city — a New Jersey construction firm with alleged links to the mob. He also admitted failing to report a loan as required by city law.

Don’t even bother with the link, that’s the whole story as reported at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Which I feel no compunction about stealing because it contains such a breathtaking lack of real reporting.

Like asking, much less answering, or even for that matter mentioning the Bigger Bernie Badness Backstory:

1)Why wasn’t he prosecuted for fucking mistresses in the apartment next to Ground Zero supposedly obtained to give essential public servants a place to catch sleep during those hideous weeks when they were often working around the clock, unable to go home even to sleep or bathe? It was not intended to serve as a free whorehouse. This was extensively publicized at the time…why is it now down the memory hole?

2) Where is any mention of that “possibly undocumented foreign nanny” that was put forth as an excuse for his withdrawal of his name when he was nominated? Again, does the memory hole not just offer forgiveness but function as a time machine, causing lies to vanish so completely it was as if they never were said?

3) How about all the other shit that came out about this crook? And where is any mention of the fact that he was a crony of St. Rudy, Hero of 9-11 For Inspirationally Not Wetting Himself On National TV? Guliani was defending this guy up down and sideways as being pure as the driven snow and indeed the best possible head of Homeland Security after Ridge quit.

Feh. Asshole didn’t even get jail time. Wonder how big a percentage of what he stole, retail over the years and wholesale in the chaos after Sept. 11, that “$221,000 in fines” represents. And how much he makes out on the Republican/religious/”conservative” lecture circuit merry go round. ’Cuz I can’t think of anybody else who would hire him for a security job more complicated than guarding a construction site to make sure that nobody stole the big hole in the ground.