Democrats and diversity

The Democrat obsession with ‘diversity’ continues, with this new report issued by them which asserts that the Bush administration’s appointees:

… includes fewer women and minorities than did President Bill Clinton’s at comparable points in their presidencies.

Gasp! This is horrible, right? Well, not exactly. Reading further into the article, we find out:

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.

[...]

The Democrats’ report argues that the decline in the number of female and minority political appointees is significant because appointees are an area of government in which a president has the most power to leave his mark. Bush, like Clinton, has said he is proud of the diversity of his administration.

The decline occurred despite a 5 percent overall increase in political appointees since 1997.

Paul C. Light, a government professor at New York University, said the Bush administration has done well in putting women and minorities in top jobs, but has not when it comes to lower-ranking appointments.

“Talented women and minority candidates simply have better job opportunities on Capitol Hill and in lobbying and law firms,” said Light, who has studied the appointment process. “You have to recruit hard to get women and minorities into these jobs, and it’s not clear to me that the Bush administration has made their recruitment a priority.”

LOL. Translation: A minority getting a lower ranking appointment is more crucial to ‘diversity’ than one getting a higher ranking appointment.

Got it

(Hat tip: Michelle Malkin)