Asking whether there was

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Asking whether there was ever a “nanny” in the first place would seem suddenly to have gone legit. The Times devotes a whole article to the question <$NoAd$>in Thursday’s paper.

And what’d they come up with?

It’s pretty hard to prove a negative. But after what seems to have been a pretty exhaustive bit of reporting, they didn’t come up with any solid evidence that such a woman existed. And they came up with a lot that points in the other direction.

All there seems to be is one neighbor who remembers seeing a woman with an olive complexion playing with Kerik’s children. And there’s a form Kerik filled out about the nanny a few weeks ago; but that form is apparently a secret, and no one can look at it. Meanwhile, press reports attributed to Kerik’s lawyer claiming the woman was from Mexico? That’s no longer operative; the lawyer says he never said any such thing.

The Times seemed to talk to everyone under the sun — family, friends, neighbors, other nannies in the neighborhood — and they either knew nothing about a nanny or wouldn’t talk.

Perhaps the most telling passage is this one, about half way through the piece …

Last night, Mr. Kerik was told that skeptics in city government circles were questioning the very existence of the nanny, and he was pressed to provide any kind of evidence to document that she was real. But after taking time to consider the request, Mr. Kerik again decided to remain silent on the subject.

So now it seems like this whole “nanny” story wasn’t just an excuse, but quite probably a lie — one which Kerik and the White House have been pushing for days.

(Of course, it’s possible the nanny really exists [see ed. note below]. But if she does, there must be something awfully unfortunate about the story to work so hard and invite such suspicion to keep the details a secret.)

And one other thing. You’ll remember that a couple days ago I asked if any reporters who’d seen details that made them think the nanny story was legit could drop me a line — not breaking any confidences or revealing any details, just to say, “Yeah, I’ve talked to the people involved and it’s pretty clear the story checks out, etc.”

Not a peep.

[Ed.Note: What remains obscure to me is this mystery form that Kerik is said to have filed last month. In a piece in yesterday’s New York Post, Deborah Orin suggests that Kerik had shown the Post the form in question and that the state issued it on November 17th. But the way she phrases it is ambiguous as to what she actually saw. The Times, as I noted above, says the document is secret. But setting aside whether the name and social security number are private, it still wasn’t quite clear to me from the Times article whether they had actually been able to independently verify that the form was even submitted and registered. If we’re just taking Kerik’s word for it, that seems pretty weak. If he really did file the form a few weeks before the need for a nanny cover developed, that suggests that there either was some nanny or some foreknowledge of a need to create a paper trail. Between those two choices, it would probably make sense to choose the more plausible, commonsense explanation — that there was a nanny. But if there were, why all this caginess and obfuscation? And why is it that this woman seems to have disappeared without a trace, with no one available beside Kerik, it seems, who can vouch for her existence?]

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