The past month has been full of distractions – racial, not really post-racial and personal.
So, I missed the release of the National Journal’s study on diversity in the Obama administration, which found that fewer than half of Cabinet-rank officials are white men.
While they represent less than half of senior aides, “the most powerful West Wing aides are still mostly white men.”
Eleven percent of President Obama’s top officials are African American. That’s not much of a change from George W. Bush, whose White House staff was 10 percent black. Yeah, who knew?
Interestingly, the survey found that the Obama administration is, ahem, “heavier on Harvard degrees” than the Bush administration.
While the Obama administration is heavy with policy wonks and academic, “few of his key people can point to significant business experience.” The National Journal reports:
Overall, only 28 percent of Obama’s top officials were business executives at some point in their careers, compared with 38 percent of Bush’s top officials at the start of his first term.
For more info, check out “Obama’s Team: The Face of Diversity.”
