Wait! Wait! Wait! I just got done doing all these Nexis searches, coming up with great illegal-immigrant-bashing quotes from Linda Chavez's past! It's not fair. Couldn't she hold on just a bit longer? I had some great Talking Points material in the pipeline. Now all gone to naught!

(Don't worry. Years from now you may be able to pick up this unreleased TPM material as a bootleg.)

Anyway, on a more serious note. I'm actually not too crazy about how this all happened. I don't have much sympathy, or time, for Linda Chavez. But as I've already said a bunch of times, which is more important, that she had this illegal immigrant crypto-maid, or that she is opposed to just about everything the Labor Department stands for?

This whole Marta Mercado affair does at the least seem pretty hypocritical. So I'm not trying to cut Chavez any slack. It would just be much better, as a general matter, if these nominees were grilled for their egregious political views, and not their semi-irrelevant personal mistakes.

P.S. The big worry now is whether this takes steam out of the push against Ashcroft. One very shrewd former Senate staffer (whom Talking Points knows) thinks the answer is yes.