Wrong signal from the White House

SAN DIEGO — Who would have thought that the nation’s first African-American president would fail Diversity 101?

Yet, when it comes to the top Cabinet positions, this is exactly what happened. And if you’re a woman, Latino, African-American or Asian-American and you support this president, you should be furious.

Save a little anger for much of the media. This story has not gotten as much attention as I had hoped. It’s not like it was a white male Republican who made a bunch of high-level Cabinet picks that don’t look like America. Now that would be a heck of a story, because it would feed into the existing narrative that the GOP resembles a restricted country club.

But somehow, when it’s a Democratic president, he largely gets a pass for preserving the status quo and hiring folks from the ol’ boy network.

Is this another example of the soft bigotry of low expectations? Or do we assume that Democrats are so enlightened on issues of diversity that they don’t have to keep proving it the way Republican administrations are expected to do?

Don’t miss the irony here. Last year, in a high-profile case involving the University of Texas, the Justice Department supported affirmative action as a viable way of expanding opportunity for women and minorities. But there is precious little affirmative action in this administration.

Of the president’s second-term nominations, four of those selected for the top jobs are white males. Former Sen. Chuck Hagel was nominated for secretary of defense, Sen. John Kerry for secretary of state, John Brennan for head of the CIA, and White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew for Treasury. The one minority, Attorney General Eric Holder, an African-American, is a holdover from the first term.

That is a pathetic record on diversity, no matter who the president is or which party he belongs to. But when the chief executive happens to be a Democrat who has enjoyed strong support from women and minorities in two presidential elections, a showing like this is especially embarrassing.

That is how Rep. Charles Rangel, a liberal Democrat and loyal Obama supporter, described the lack of diversity in the president’s Cabinet choices. In fact, Rangel’s exact words were “embarrassing as hell.” He described as “fair” the complaints he had heard from critics who are upset over the nominations. After all, Rangel said, “the record speaks for itself.”

Yes, it does. And what it says is either that Obama doesn’t think that he needs a diverse Cabinet or that he has an enormous blind spot where diversity is concerned. Neither option is good.

Rangel thinks that “there’s no excuse” for the lack of women and minorities because Obama has already been in office for four years, and so he has had time to develop a strong bench.

There are three basic requirements to be a Cabinet secretary: Can you do the job? Can you be loyal to the president and carry out his agenda? And can you get confirmed?

Are we to believe that Obama couldn’t find any capable women or minority candidates who met those qualifications? Where are the “binders full of women” when we need them?

Obama’s defenders will point to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who was believed to be the first choice for secretary of state before dropping out of the running after a frosty reception from Republicans. But when Rice withdrew her name, Obama could have nominated another woman or a minority. He didn’t. That’s on him.

The process is just beginning. There will be more Cabinet nominations in the weeks to come, and some of those will probably go to women and minorities. But that’s junior varsity – Labor, Commerce, Interior, Housing, Energy, Transportation, Education. The best jobs are spoken for.

It doesn’t help matters that, when asked about the issue at his recent news conference, Obama reacted defensively. He mentioned everything from the fact that both of his nominees to the Supreme Court are women – Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – to the fact that, as he said, more than half of the people who work in the White House are women. What more do you want, Obama seemed to be asking.

A lot more, Mr. President. A lot more.

Ruben Navarrette is a columnist for U-T San Diego. Reach him at ruben@rubennavarrette.com.