Word: chertoff
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...radical notion that you should focus resources and money on cities most at risk of attack. He said it when he started in 2005. Repeated it in 2006. And in 2007, 77% of DHS grants are being doled out using a risk-based formula, up from zero in 2005. Chertoff has also backed off from the color-code hysterics, advocating a less reactive, more strategic approach to security. One of his major efforts is to get all U.S. ports ready to screen 98% of containers for radiation by the end of this year...
...addition, Chertoff has practice tuning out political pressure. Early in his career, he left a lucrative job at a white-shoe law firm to put away Mob bosses as a first assistant U.S. Attorney in New York. In 2006 the DHS Secretary weathered a call for his resignation from Nevada Democrat Harry Reid, then the Senate minority leader, because Las Vegas had been denied security dollars...
Just by looking at him, you can tell Chertoff is a man who exercises tremendous self-control. (Blogs have nicknamed him Skeletor.) He can get through the day on a couple of pieces of toast for breakfast, a PowerBar for lunch, and yogurt and an apple for dinner. When he was head of the criminal division at the Justice Department, subordinates remember, he would put a quarter down on the office counter for every personal fax he made...
...Chertoff may require that self-control to get through the Washington cocktail parties that he--nearly alone among Bush Cabinet members--makes a point of frequenting. Socializing with his opponents, Chertoff says, allows him "to make sure we're not living in a tunnel." But there is a political benefit to all that Chardonnay sipping as well. You can look your opponents in the eye. "It's harder to demonize somebody if you've gotten to know them as a person," he says...
Even so, luck may have played the largest role in protecting Chertoff's job. He was able to sidestep the firestorm after Katrina largely because there was a fall guy, FEMA chief Michael Brown, to take the heat. Without Brown, it could have been Chertoff's head that rolled. In addition, the U.S. hasn't been attacked since 9/11. Most experts acknowledge that even with the best security preparations, there's still a risk of attack. Our number hasn't come up again since Chertoff took office...