WSJ Editorial: The Nanny Chronicles

The Wall Street Journal

The Nanny Chronicles
December 14, 2004; Page A14

White House officials have now spent three days whispering to every reporter in town that Bernard Kerik's botched nomination isn't their fault. Is it too much to ask that someone inside that elegant bunker also take a moment to explain that this latest nanny fiasco is a perfect argument for President Bush's immigration reform?

Apparently it is. So we guess we'll have to do it instead.

(snip)

Yes, we know, it's the law, but sometimes the law is a horse's you-know-what. In Washington, the dignitaries who may have their own nannies intone that a man who may have winked at immigration violations couldn't possibly enforce border security. But if you ask us, Mr. Kerik's domestic-help experience made him more qualified for that office by helping him understand just how crazy our immigrations laws are.

Think about the Kerik example: The man and his wife have two small kids and are looking for help around the house. A nanny offers that help, and she seems both nice enough and gets along with kids. Whether or not she's "legal" seems less important to most American parents than whether she's trustworthy and hard-working. As for the nanny, she's traveled hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from home to make some money and get ahead. Her primary concern isn't running some Immigration Service gantlet but is to find a good family that pays decently and treats her well. Are we really supposed to believe that this kind of transaction between consenting adults jeopardizes our national security?

If that's what our laws say, then we need to change those laws.

(snip)

As for immigration law, the Bush Administration is headed down the right path with its guest-worker program. That proposal acknowledges that immigrants fill vital jobs, that movement across borders is inevitable as long as there is the lure of opportunity, and that merely adding more border guards won't stop migrants in any case.

(snip)

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110298840432899254,00.html

Was the WSJ so accomodating to Clinton when his nominees ran into the nanny gauntlet?

snipped from the post:

He thus joins Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood and Linda Chavez as distinguished people disqualified from public office by America's nanny crime wave.

If that were the only issue, I'd be considerably more sympathetic!

Child abandonment?

Oh, no, no, no! It's all about immigration reform!

and their pat on the prez's back re guest workers is fairly nauseating but I am glad someone pointed out the irony of having an illegal employee, even though it is the tiniest of Kerik's problems.