It’s just a job, y’know?

Crist Lite, also known as Senator George LeMieux, apparently has some ‘splaining to do.

From Mark Krikorian, via The Corner blog at NRO:

When Gov. Charlie Crist named his pal George LeMieux to keep the Senate seat warm for him, Jonah observed that “Any votes Crist Lite [LeMieux] makes in Washington will be, for political purposes, Crist votes.” Well, it’s not just votes — any controversy that arises will become Crist’s problem too.

And now there is such a controversy, which broke even before LeMieux was sworn in on Thursday. Until his accession to the Senate, LeMieux was chairman of Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart, described by a local CBS news report as “a Florida-based law firm which specializes in helping companies hire foreigners to replace American workers inside the United States.” Well, it turns out LeMieux’s firm may have done its job a little too well for his own good; it helped import low-paid Mexican sheet-metal workers for a hotel construction job at a time when there are reported to be as many as 2,000 unemployed sheet-metal workers in South Florida alone, not to mention those elsewhere in the U.S. who’d happily move for a job. And if you search the long table here, you’ll find unemployment among sheet-metal workers was over 8 percent even before the recession.

So George LeMieux’s job was to make sure Americans got fired?  Jeeze, you can’t write this stuff in a Hollywood scriptwriting shop.  And what was LeMieux’s response?

LeMieux says “I didn’t bill any time on the matter” and isn’t familiar with all the details of the case. He was just, you know, chairman of the firm.

Yeah.  So if that’s not the Senator you want in Florida, put your money where your mouth is.