Tom Ridge accepted an enormous task when he became the secretary of the new Homeland Security Department. On the biggest score, his time in office has been successful. There have been no terror attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

Whether that is because of his work or in spite of it remains to be seen.

The department is best known for its feckless color-coded terrorism warning system that does a better job of selling duct tape than actually informing the country and frontline responders about potential threats.

Chemical and nuclear plants are still not secure. Only about one in every 10 cargo containers coming into the country is searched, and cargo on commercial jets isn’t searched. Federal money was, early on, misdirected, so that it went to communities that faced lesser threats while prime target areas didn’t receive needed funding.

Ridge has struggled for clout in the president’s Cabinet, despite commanding a big slice of the federal bureaucracy. He has wrestled wide-ranging agencies into a single, super-department that includes missions as different as border security and disaster response.

Bernard Kerik, who was the commissioner of police in New York when the World Trade Center was attacked, has been nominated by President Bush to succeed Ridge. A Washington outsider who campaigned heavily for Bush during the election, Kerik will need to elevate the department’s standing in Washington and be more aggressive in pushing its priorities if he is to stand shoulder to shoulder with the heavyweights on Bush’s policy team who will remain from his first term.