This is just wankilicious (from Chuck Todd’s shop):
The second-term cabinet shuffle has been an unforced error so far. (The reason why the White House is receiving criticism for a lack of diversity is that it has nominated three consecutive white men for cabinet posts — John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, and today Jack Lew — but without a high-profile woman or minority thrown into the mix. And that doesn’t include John Brennan at CIA and a likely white male to be the next White House chief of staff.) Indeed, you could argue that the Romney folks thought a lot more about staffing a Romney administration over the next four years than Team Obama did about a second-term administration. In fairness to the White House, its top officials were so focused on the fiscal-cliff talks in the past two months. What’s more, this kind of disorganization isn’t unusual for a second term, especially after winning a hard-fought race for re-election. And finally, it’s a process story. At the end of the day, it’s likely that Obama’s second-term cabinet will have plenty of diversity and top-notch names. But the process hasn’t been pretty. Question for the White House: Why didn’t it have a second-term transition director? Someone whose full-time job was to keep an eye on the optics of how and when to announce, on the leaks etc.?
I’ll concede that there has been some sloppiness surrounding the announcement of nominees for the new cabinet, but let’s look at this diversity charge. So far, the administration has replaced a white man at Defense with a white man at Defense. They’ve replaced a white Christian man at Treasury with an Orthodox Jew who faithfully observes the Sabbath (he sure as shit don’t fucking roll). He’s (for now) retained Eric Holder, a black man, as his Attorney General. He’s retained Eric Shinseki, of Japanese ancestry, as head of Veteran’s Affairs. He’s retained Kathleen Sebelius as head of Health & Human Services. The single appointment that can be described as getting less diverse is John Kerry’s replacement of Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. Yet, if you think about it, Kerry and Clinton share something different in common. They are the two most prominent members of the Democratic Party who have never been president. Kerry, like Clinton, was selected for his stature, not his gender or race.
It could wind up that Obama’s second term cabinet is less diverse than his first. Considering that, in addition to those mentioned above, his first term cabinet included an Asian-American at Energy, Latinos at Labor and Interior, blacks as EPA administrator and as U.S. Trade Representative, and women at Commerce and Homeland Security, it would be hard to get more diverse.
Under the circumstances, it is totally premature to characterize the diversity of the new cabinet, but it’s also a contextually-challenged charge. If the most diverse cabinet in history gets a little less diverse, that isn’t exactly surprising. The thing is, based on the appointments that have already been announced, it really hasn’t become less diverse at all.
