"Liberals" support quotas, just not for white men, southerners (Obama cabinet)

Many "liberals" believe in quotas in everything, whether they admit it or not. However, there are limits to liberalism. Namely, when the quota involves white men, especially white men from the South. Following are four recent examples involving the selections Barack Obama has made for his cabinet and top administration positions. These are reactions to the article "Southerners are the missing group in Obama's Cabinet" (link), which quotes Larry Sabato as saying:

"Obama scored a tremendous advance for Democrats in winning the three large Southern states and ignored them... I'm just stunned. It was the one grouping completely ignored."

1. Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly says "This notion that somehow Southerners have become an underrepresented minority, deserving of affirmative action and a quota system, is absurd." (archives/individual/2008_12/016149.php)

2. Greg Sargent of TalkingPointsMemo says, referring to Ron Kirk: "Okay, so now Obama has enlisted a southerner, which may quiet the chatter about that. But still -- it's absolutely outrageous that Obama's cabinet doesn't contain a single white southerner." In the comments, various clapping seals applaud him for his sarcastic "wit".

3. Ezra Klein of TAPPED offers "The South will whine again?": "Related related thought: Why stop at quotas? Maybe we can start busing southerners to the cabinet meetings."

4. Adam Serwer of TAPPED offers "White Anxiety": But the southern "snub" isn't really about there being no "southerners" in the cabinet. It's about there not being enough white men in the cabinet -- complaining about a lack of southerners is a less embarrassing way of expressing that than sounding like Michael Savage.

Mon, 12/22/2008 - 13:06 · Importance: 4