Cut'N'Run Kerik Cuts and Runs Again

Ah, the nanny problem. Who can't relate to the problem of having to hire undocumented workers to raise your children?

Mr. Kerik, who said he had first uncovered the problem as he and his lawyers went through the paperwork required for Senate confirmation of his job on Friday, had been in contact earlier in the day with the White House counsel's office. He later called Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, and the phone call with Mr. Bush was arranged.

And Rudy Guiliani, Mr. Subtlety and Nuance, marvels at the complexity of modern life.

"This is a sad day for him and his family," he said. "But we all have complex lives. Sometimes it trips you up."

It's funny. You're just minding your own business, when one day an illegal immigrant places herself in your employ and forgets to fill out those 1099s, leaving you in a right mess.

Fucking frauds, both of them.

And here's the A.P., doing a story on past illegal immigrant-related confirmation problems without mentioning Linda Chavez's program to restore the self-esteem of battered immigrant women by having them clean her toilets.

(Is that article correct? I recall Guinier being dumped for writing a law review article on proportional-representation voting, not for employing an undocumented worker. And here's CBS, putting a right wing spin on Chavez, insinuating the woman she employed was merely someone "[Chavez] had given money and shelter to ... who once did chores around her house.")

Of course, this is more of a class issue than a party issue, it's just that more Republicans have no class.

But I have little use for anyone believes that other nations exist solely to provide cheap labor to maintain his or her fabulous lifestyle. I remember the Zoe Baird confirmation and how, at the time, Anna Quindlen tried to justify her own employment of a (legal) nanny by asserting Americans often employed immigrant women to care for children because the womens' homeland cultures value children and child-rearing more than ours does. (I can't find that article online.) Which is true, Anna, to the extent these women love their own children so much they're willing to work for a non-living wage to mind your squalling brats.

As for Kerik, I suspect there are much bigger skeletons he wanted to keep in the closet.