National Journal takes a look at the relative diversity of the last two presidential administrations:
A National Journal study of 366 top Obama administration officials has found that 52 percent are white males, down from 59 percent at this point in President George W. Bush‘s first term. Eleven percent of those officials are African Americans, compared with 10 percent under Bush. The Journal assessment, out today, said 8 percent of Obama’s top folks are Hispanic, compared with 6 percent for Bush. Asian Americans totaled 4 percent of Obama’s team and 3 percent of Bush’s, according to the Journal.
“Overall,” Al Kamen writes, “given the demographics of the Obama vote, the percentages don’t differ all that much between the two administrations, at least so far.” What does that mean? A few things really, the first being that all those prominent Republican officials on TV whining about affirmative action might not actually believe what they’re saying. In our modern GOP however, cognitive dissonance is the name of the game, so it’s more likely that they believe that “our minorities are smarter than their minorities,” (or, certainly, someone who thinks the CRA caused the credit crisis will conclude that this was the Bush administration’s real problem) and that the diversity of the Bush administration was incidental rather than deliberate. The demographics of the Republican party suggest that in reality, what we’re seeing is that the Bush administration practiced affirmative action even more vigorously than the Obama administration does.
Is that a bad thing? Um, no. Not at all.
— A. Serwer
