Whitman Faces Growing Furor Over Hypocrisy On Undocumented Nanny

Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is facing a growing uproar over criticizing businesses that hire undocumented immigrants while at the same time having hired one as a nanny for nine years.

In a recent debate, she was pummeled by her Democratic opponent Jerry Brown on this very issue. George Skelton of the Los Angeles Times has more in his story Housekeeper issue casts Whitman as hypocrite:

Words do matter. Whitman made herself into a very large target at UC Davis when she declared: "We do have to hold employers accountable for hiring only documented workers, and we do have to enforce that law."

Despite the revelation the next day that she herself had employed an illegal immigrant maid for nine years — unbeknownst to her, she says — Whitman repeated the admonition in a second contentious encounter with Brown on Saturday at Cal State Fresno: "If we don't hold employers accountable, we will never get our arms around this [illegal immigration] problem."

This led to a thunderous smack down from Brown:

"Ms. Whitman obviously didn't crack down on herself," the Democrat replied. "This is a question of talking out of both sides of her mouth."

Skelton's article focuses not on the problems associated with hiring undocumented workers, but rather the current Republican posturing on the issue of immigration:

The Republican candidate's problem is not that she hired an undocumented housemaid. That's understandable in modern California. The Mexican immigrant's papers were phony, after all.

That would be a problem only within the Republican right, which Whitman pandered to in winning the GOP nomination. And that's her problem now as she runs among a broader electorate, because the early hard-line anti-illegal immigrant stance seems so contradictory.

It also amounts to impractical policy, as she herself has shown.

"Basically, it's disingenuous rhetorical fantasy about what the California governor can do," says Democratic consultant Bill Carrick, who's not involved in the gubernatorial race.

"What happens when Whitman's next door neighbor has a swat team of gardeners show up every week? Is she going to notice this and send in her inspection team? She is exposing the reality of California at the same time she's engaging in all this hollow rhetoric."