From Holden:

Richard Cohen sez Bernard Kerik is as deserving of the Medal of Freedom as Tenet, Bremer and Franks.

To make these awards in the face of failure — the mounting American death toll, the awful suffering of the Iraqis, the looming possibility of civil war, the nose-thumbing of the still-at-large Osama bin Laden and the madness of making war for a nonexistent reason — has the creepy feel of the old communist states, where incompetents wore medals and harsh facts were denied. For this reason Bernie Kerik — three months in Iraq building a police force as good as rhetoric can make it — seemed as likely and appropriate a recipient of a presidential medal as any of the others.