Bernard Kerik has withdrawn his name ^[1] from consideration for Homeland Security Director for breaking what is probably the second most disobeyed law in the country (puff, puff) – employing an illegal alien as a housekeeper. Out here in the bourgeois nabes of Southern California, there’s most likely a similar miscreant in every other house–or maybe even three out of four.

Of course, Kerik was a cop… and about to be America’s security chief… so we shouldn’t excuse him such things. But I’d wager a lot of the finger pointers in the media and elsewhere on this “astonishing revelation” are about as squeaky clean on the issue as those “distinguished barristers” Zoe Baird ^[2] and Kimba Wood ^[3]. Remember them? We’ve all been here before. When it comes to hypocrisy, this issue, which crosses party lines at will, even has marijuana beat. The real problem isn’t Kerik, it’s illegal immigration in this country and what to do about it. No one has even scratched the surface of that.

But as for Kerik, the whole “nanny” situation may be no more than a cover story for something far more serious ^[4].