Republicans are chastising President Obama for the lack of diversity in his Cabinet appointments.
Wait, what?
Yes, after tanking the nomination of African-American woman Susan Rice before it even happened, Republicans are crying foul at the four white men Obama has appointed to head federal agencies in his second term.
The president, for his part, urged patience.
“I would just suggest that everybody kind of wait until they've seen all my appointments, who's in the White House staff and who's in my Cabinet, before they rush to judgment,” he said in a press conference on Monday.
With the resignations of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and EPA Director Lisa Jackson, Obama loses three women from his Cabinet.
So far, only Clinton has been replaced, by Sen. John Kerry, who’s about as patrician as it gets. But Kerry was Obama’s second choice behind Rice (not that Kerry isn’t well-qualified; everyone seems to agree he’ll make a fine Secretary of State).
Aside from that, Obama has appointed Jack Lew as Treasury Secretary, John Brennan as CIA Director, and Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. Hagel brings a kind of diversity as a former Republican senator. Lew is an Orthodox Jew, but apparently that doesn’t count.
By all accounts, Obama still relies heavily on Valerie Jarrett, one of his senior advisors. In any objective sense, a woman, Clinton, has been the most high-profile person in the first four year’s of the Obama administration other than the president, eclipsing Vice President Joe Biden and all other Cabinet members.
And none of the women resigning from the Cabinet leave unwillingly.
Perhaps a more useful criticism of Obama’s appointments is their predictability. Obama has chosen establishment bureaucrats to run his administration, promising more of the same.
More of the same monetary policy and reluctance to reign in banks, hedge funds and their managers or prosecute those responsible for the financial collapse. Lew has ties to Citibank.
More of the same foreign policy and unpopular drone strikes. Brennan has been accused of being too silent while the CIA tortured prisoners. Kerry will continue Clinton’s work, but with less panache.
Perhaps the Republican offers the best hope for change, assuming Hagel can get past his old colleagues and into the position. He has spoken out against out of control defense spending and wars for oil, comments that have an excellent chance of making Senate Republicans block his confirmation.
But with several more appointments to make, Obama understands he’ll need to keep up appearances, even if those demanding it the loudest have no real interest in it.
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