You may have noticed that, unlike in 2000, the Republicans did not fill their convention stage with black faces this year.
There were some, of course. But nothing like the veritable festival of blackness that made the Philadelphia convention so memorable and stunning four years ago. Organizers must have felt they had the diversity question covered among the delegates, where there were nearly twice as many people of color as before -- 17 percent in 2004 versus 9 percent in 2000.
Even though 17 percent is still paltry, it does show growth and the GOP was apparently satisfied with it enough that it didn’t even march out the administration’s poster girl and boy -- Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell -- to sweeten the bait. Of Bush’s Cabinet, only Education Secretary Rod Paige, nondescript and noncontroversial, made the prime time cut.
Apparently, Bush is confident that, when it comes to proving a commitment to inclusiveness, he has been there, done that aplenty. As he told a convention of black, Latino, Asian and Native American journalists last month, his administration is diverse "and I'm proud of that."
Apparently, too, most Americans have been willing to accept that claim at face value -- meaning that Bush's famous incuriousity has rubbed off on too many of his countrymen. He has learned to count on it. It’s what allowed him to bamboozle the nation into war and keep it bogged down in conflict and loss. Too many people just take him at his word.
Wowed and perhaps intimidated by the historic Rice and Powell appointments, the public has simply backed off, allowing Bush to wallow in a reputation of fair play without questioning whether the numbers bear him out.
Thank heavens, then, for a journalist-friend who is blessed with a very curious mind, investigative skills and wizardry in database reporting. Tom Brune of Newsday recently completed a study of Bush administration appointments and found that the diversity claim is -- surprise! -- quite the exaggeration.
Brune found that blacks make up 7 percent of the Bush administration. He found that: “Overall, the Bush administration gave more than half, 54 percent, of its political positions to white men. Clinton awarded 57 percent of his jobs to women and minorities.”
In breaking it down, Brune discovered that white men won 66 percent of the senior executive posts, the ones with the most power, highest visibility and best pay. Under Clinton, 45 percent of the plum jobs went to white men.
Brune also reported that Paige’s top squad in the Education Department is “quite diverse,” with one-third people of color.
Yet, he wrote, “Of (Paige's) 22 senior executives -- chiefs of staff, deputy assistant secretaries and advisers -- only three, or 14 percent, were minorities and just a third women. And 60 percent were white men.”
The White House, Brune noted, does not dispute the findings; indeed, “it was comfortable with the numbers and ratios, spokesman Trent Duffy said.”
I'll bet. Especially since many Americans seem just as comfortable, using Rice, Powell, Paige and a few others as Exhibits A, B and C in their pro-diversity arguments. Never mind the facts that show that beneath the surface, where most of the policy and plans get made, it's still as white as the driven snow, even as the country gets browner by the day.
Brune notes too that, last year, the Bush administration ditched the affirmative action program for federal employment.
It’s conceivable, then, that the low numbers in racial diversity and disdain for the facilitators of diversity reflect not only an apathy about inclusiveness, but a sense of entitlement for white males.
In short, he's done it again -- talked the talk but not walked the walk while American swooned.
This, I tell you, is a lucky man. The right man at the right time. A time when Americans are too scared to raise up out of the bunker and look around; too afraid to question the man in the White House who tells us only he can save us and makes sure we feel in need of rescue; too shaky to wonder, to doubt, to question. We just buy it, facts be damned. What a country.
