President Obama's Diversity Kerfuffle

    President Obama has been taking friendly fire lately for the "lack of diversity" in recent cabinet picks.  As I noted yesterday, even Charlie Rangel was a bit put out by President Obama's lack of focus on symbolism in personnel decisions.  Perhaps there is nostalgia for the glory days when pandering to groups was more of a priority.  One such example is the president's signature accomplishment  ObamaCare.

    While perusing the ObamaCare law for another story, I made an inadvertent discovery.  I noticed the references to "women" were fairly frequent, but I had trouble finding "men."  As it turns out, there's a good reason that the disparity was so apparent.  A search of the document reveals 145 uses of "women."  And "men"?  One.  And here it is, in Section 1101, page 418:

(3) provide information to women and health care providers on those areas in which differences between men and women exist;

    "Men" only makes it into the law as a point of reference to define areas of care for women.  Men are simply the not-women of ObamaCare.

    Obviously men are covered under the (endless!) general provisions of ObamaCare.  Women have unique health needs that the framers of the law felt necessary to spell out.  Is this 145:1 ratio evidence of discrimination against men?  I suppose it's possible, but unlikely.

    The point here is not one of complaint, but rather illustration.  In the current kerfuffle with the president, liberals have painted themselves into a corner given their history of incessant emphasis on externals ("color of their skin", in the words of Martin Luther King, and "war on women", in the words of countless liberals.)  When a conservative or a Republican violates the unwritten rules of diversity, it's easy to shout "racism" or "sexism."

    But this is their man.  What are their alternatives?  Is the president deliberately or carelessly overlooking more qualified minorities in favor of "good ole (white) boy" picks?  That's virtually unthinkable for a true progressive like Obama.  Or are the minority candidates not as qualified, but the president's critics believe he should choose them anyway?  Diversity trumps qualifications?  Or are the good ole boys and the minorities equally qualified, and the critics believe a tie goes to "diversity"?

    Perhaps this conflict will help expose the hypocrisy of the "diversity" crowd to a wider audience.  I do not know Barack Obama's motives for choosing the men he has to fill the open cabinet positions.  But it is obvious that at least in these cases, he's not pandering on the basis of race or sex.  Would that liberals could give conservatives and Republicans the same benefit of the doubt.

Name That Campaign

    Here's a challenge for you.  Below are the main menu bars from the websites of both the Obama and Romney campaigns.  Try to guess which one is which:

    Visually, they are quite similar.  The "Donate" button is (of course) prominently displayed in red on both.  Other choices, such as "videos", "issues", and "states" are the same.  Still others are worded differently, but also clearly match up: "bio" = "about", "news" = "blog", "store" = "shop", and "volunteer" = "get involved".  By now, the good students will have recognized the odd man out: "groups".  Is there anyone who is still confused about which menu bar goes with which campaign?  Spoiler alert!

That's right.  It's the website of the politician who said on election night 2008:

"Rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America."

The Obama campaign recently resurrected this theme on Twitter:

(Not only are there no red states or blue states, but about a dozen states are completely missing in  deference to the visage of the President.)  Coincidentally, four days after this tweet, the official WhiteHouse.gov site also got into the act with their weekly feature West Wing Week video: "West Wing Week: 5/4/12 or 'Out of Many, We are One.'"  However, the way the campaign and the Democrats choose to appeal to voters, Al Gore's infamous 1994 remix of E Plurbis Unum as "out of one, many" would be more apropos.