Meg's Illegal Nanny

by Dennis Green

It's a paradigm familiar to anyone who lives in California -- the wealthy matron who hires an illegal alien from Mexico to rear her children. Much more common than the tomato farm field hand toiling in the hot sun just outside Bakersfield, all over Southern California, tucked away in little make-shift apartments over the garage are these live-in nannies available 24/7 who work for little more than room and board, exploited by their employers.

When I was married to the Blonde Bombshell from Orange County, I had a sister and brother-in-law who lived on Balboa Island in Newport Beach, two blocks from John Wayne, who fit the stereotype completely. They had two little girls, belonged to the John Birch Society, and paid a live-in Mexican nanny a pittance to live in that one-room apartment over their garage and be constantly on-duty.

"Green Card? I don't need no stinking Green Card!" And they never bothered to verify, or even do the most cursory background check to be sure they were not breaking the law. In her first debate with Jerry Brown this week, Meg Whitman said, in response to the subject of illegal immigration, "All employers have a strict responsibility to verify the Green Card status of people they hire to work for them."

A good, sensible, conservative answer, right?

But now Meg's nanny of 9 years is suing Whitman for lost wages, and the story of her firing is perhaps typical of Compassionate Conservatism. "She called me in and told me I was fired, and that 'From this moment on, I don't know you and you don't know me!'" No sverance pay, or even back wages. Unfortunately, Meg had not, in the words of Ronald Reagan, done due diligence to "Trust and verify!"

How embarasking, as Olive Oil might say. More importantly, Supreme Court nominees have been disqualified for less.

Whitman's first excuse? "I didn't know. She used her sister's immigration papers. How could I know?"

Her second excuse? "Well, her attorney is Gloria Allred, a notorious lawyer for pushing women's rights and defending immigration scofflaws. She's also supported Jerry Brown, contributed money to his campaign, and is hardly objective." Look who's talking.

But in my opinion, Meg is a goner. Her high-priced political consultants must know that. SHE must know that. For she has suddenly been identified to the voters as "One of THEM!" the ugly, dreaded Super Rich who are above the law, who needn't abide by the rules of polite society that the rest of us respect. All along, we've had our suspicions, and now they are confirmed.

We might vote for a sassy, successful female, even a centrist conservative like Meg. Until she takes on that awful shroud -- Privilege! Once she identifies with the very rich, the very privileged, we all know how the rich get richer. They cheat on their taxes. President Bush cuts their taxes way below the rates they paid under Reagan. On Wall Street, they cheat on their investments, and when they get in trouble, Bush bails them out.

And they hire illegal aliens at wages far below,, minimum -- the Growers to pick their crops, the people who live in McMansions the gardeners to trim their McLawns, the big contractors hiring men off street corners to repair their leaking roofs, and the Fifth Avenue matrons hiring the housekeepers and nannies to clean their homes and tend to their McKids. It isn't that we envy them the ability to skirt the law, to get all this cheap labor. No, we resent the fact that they turn right around and bemoan, as Meg has, the porous U.S. Southern border.

If you hire them, they will come. Most of us can't afford to have a live-in nanny, or an obedient housekeeper, a gardener, or a field hand. We may even have sympathized with Cesar Chavez and Huelga! And even if we didn't, we recognize rank hypocrisy when we see it, and the terrible unfairness of people who take advantage of the system, and then tell the rest of us to complain, and to look down upon those "Lawbreakers." Those other lawbreakers.

No, I never liked Meg Whitman, caught the sickly stench of her hypocrisy from afar. But now I have a good reason to get out that Voodoo Doll.