Bush should withdraw Chavez nomination

ABC News reported Monday that George W. Bush’s Labor Department nominee, Linda Chavez, "may have hired" a woman from Guatemala who was, at the time, an illegal immigrant.

The woman, Marta Mercado, has since become a legal immigrant, but back then -- from 1992 until 1993 -- when she lived with Chavez in her Washington, D.C.-area home, she wasn’t "legal."

What is known so far, according to both Chavez and Mercado, is that neither Mercado nor Chavez considered the arrangement one of "employment." That’s important, because it goes to the heart of the ABC report and Democratic charges that a prospective Labor Department chief had, in the past, violated U.S. labor laws.

At best, based on published information, Mercado -- "from time to time" -- received "spending money" from Chavez for irregular chores performed around the house. Mercado has said she did those things to help repay Chavez’s kindness for taking her in.

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Whatever. The point is, Chavez and Mercado have admitted that the Guatemalan indeed at least lived with Chavez for a year and did do some "chores" for Chavez -- in violation of 1986 Immigration and Naturalization Service laws forbidding U.S. citizens from providing a home to an illegal immigrant.

While I don’t doubt Chavez’s denials that Mercado was an employee -- along the lines of Clinton attorney general nominee Zoe Baird, who, in 1993, admitted actually hiring an illegal immigrant to work as her nanny -- the immigration laws say you can’t provide "aid and comfort" to illegal immigrants, which Chavez clearly did.

This is a lousy way for a Labor Department secretary to begin her tenure. In fact, it’s no way for her or any other Bush nominee to begin their tenure; my hope is the president-elect moves to replace Chavez immediately, lest he -- and Republicans in general -- be chastised as hypocrites for reaming Bill Clinton over such nominations but defending Chavez simply because Bush named her.

This is also a blow to the incoming Bush administration at a time when it doesn’t need any more problems. The outgoing Clinton-Gore regime has left Bush a mess; the administration will have its hands full reinvigorating the U.S. economy, rebuilding the military, and convincing Congress to sign off on Bush’s $1.3 trillion tax cut plan.

But it is not a blow that is impossible to overcome. Indeed, in the eyes of many critics -- voters who are already bent out of shape that Bush beat Al Gore in the first place -- the immediate move to replace Chavez could be a huge confidence-builder.

Even if replacing Chavez doesn’t silence most critics, however, it is still the right thing to do. At a bare minimum, the action would leave Mr. Bush’s critics hard-pressed to claim, as they will try to do, that he -- like Clinton -- doesn’t think the rules apply to him.

Conservatives may want to "blame" ABC News for reporting this. They shouldn’t -- this was a legitimate story and one that needed telling.

It would be appropriate to ask where ABC and the rest of the mainstream press has been for most of the past eight years; and it is not out of line to ask the mainstream press to refrain from reporting innuendo as fact, as it tried to do when "allegations" that Mr. Bush used cocaine years ago first surfaced. But as to the legitimacy of this particular story, ABC was dead-on to pursue and publish it.

I applaud Ms. Chavez for fessing up to housing Mercado and caring for her at a time when, clearly, the woman needed a friend and a helping hand. Democrats and liberal critics could take a lesson from Chavez on the true meaning of the word "compassion."

But she made a mistake in judgment, in violation of U.S. law. Consequently, she cannot be given a position of authority in which, among other things, she would be responsible for administering U.S. labor laws.

That’s too hypocritical to pass muster, and it would be a damaging blow to the incoming Bush administration which needs all the support it can get.

My only advice would be to find a replacement who holds the same views -- anti-affirmative action, no increases in the minimum wage, and U.S. workers first -- that Ms. Chavez holds.