Bush's Appointees Not As Diverse as Clinton's

WaPo reported President Bush's crop of political appointees includes fewer women and minorities than did President Bill Clinton's at comparable points in their presidencies, according to a new report by House Democrats.... What the report does not mention, however, is that Bush has established a record of diversity in his Cabinet. Bush's Cabinet, which includes the vice president and the heads of 15 executive departments, currently has two Hispanics, two African Americans and two Asian Americans. Three departments -- State, Education and Labor -- are headed by women, and a fourth, Interior, has an acting secretary who is a woman.

Before Bush took office, no minority had occupied any of the four highest-profile Cabinet positions -- attorney general and the secretaries of the Defense, State and Treasury departments. Now, Alberto R. Gonzales, a Hispanic, is attorney general. Condoleezza Rice is the first African American woman to be secretary of state; her predecessor, Colin L. Powell, was the first African American named to that post.

So Clinton had more women (probably to service him) and minorities in low level, unimportant, positions, and Bush named many more to top cabinet positions.

This corresponds to the way the parties treat people. Democrats pretend to care, but certainly dont want minorities to succeed, because they might cease to vote Democratic, and Republicans give everyone a chance to succeed, regardless of race or gender.

Michelle Malkin blogged In other words, Bush is an enemy of progress and civil rights because he has appointed too many minorities and women to top Cabinet positions--and not enough to lower, less important jobs! Snort.

Betsy Newmark blogged The quota of politics, in their view, only counts when it favors the Democrats. We need to get beyond this labeling. They can't argue that Bush has been antagonistic to women and minorities in appointments, so they have to resort to arguments by pie graphs.

John M. Martin blogged If anything, House Democrats should be incensed at the Clinton Administration for doling out appointments to minorities and women only at lower level, lower paying positions and totally ignoring them at the Cabinet level. Hasn't the claim of a "glass ceiling" been the diversity knock on Corporate America for a number of years? If so, the same criticism should hold in the government sector under the Clinton Administration.

During the Bush Administration, the glass ceiling has been broken. Nevertheless, House Democrats are sifting through the shards to find evidence that this White House is less diverse than its predecessor, only to be cut to pieces in the process.

The Unalienable Right blogged This silly report says nothing about President Bush’s commitment to equal opportunity for all Americans; it says much about the obsession of the Democrats with judging people first by the color of their skin, or their sex, not by the content of their character. Of course all that is par for the course for the party of Jim Crow.

Incidentally, when 90%+ of black voters choose to be Democrats, are they going to be likely to apply for positions in a Republican administration? We’re sure the Democrats took that sort of thing into account when they did their ridiculous “study”, right?