Affirmative Action

One of the most aggravating hypocrisies of the Bush Administration and its Republican enablers, has been the disconnect between their public stance against Affirmative Action and their actual behavior in terms of hiring. The Bush Administration has been composed of some of the most mediocre individuals that I can remember, going back to the first Reagan administration.

Accordingly, the truth comes out. Republicans are not against Affirmative Action at all. They simply use it as a political wedge to separate people and their party from the Democrats, while all the time serving up people like Albert Gonzales and Condi Rice who would never have achieved their positions in the administration solely upon merit.

Here's an excerpt from a Salon article discussing Rice's career:

[Rice] the arrogant perfectionist is inevitably beset by contradictions and liabilities. With the possible exception of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, she is probably the nation's single most prominent beneficiary of affirmative action, but remains haughtily aloof from the black community and strikingly devoid of empathy for minorities who have not emulated her success. Those feelings were reflected in her decision to join the Republican Party during the Reagan era, supporting a conservatism undergirded by whites' resentment and dedicated to abolishing the reforms that had made her career possible. It is hard to like a striver who wants to pull up the ladder behind her.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/05/04/condi_rice/