Here’s a warning to all you white male Senators out there: don’t count on having your job very long, and don’t count on being able to ever get it back if you lose it to a woman or a black person at some point. You see, there’s a new rule for the United States Senate. We’ll call it the rule of sames.
Sames applies to three things: Party, Race, and Sex.
We’re seeing the rule of sames in two Senate vacancies as we speak.
In Illinois, disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich has been warned on numerous occasions that Barack Obama’s vacant seat belongs to a black man.
Chicago political consultant Philip Molfese said Blagojevich has no choice but to consider race in his decision.
“That’s, I think, an important consideration the governor has to take,” he said. “Barack Obama was the only African American in the U.S. Senate.”
Note they aren’t talking about qualifications or experience, just skin color. In New York, the situation is equally ridiculous, only instead of pigmentation, the issue is genitalia. Senator Hillary Clinton was chosen to be Obama’s Secretary of State, leaving Governor David Paterson the chance to pick her replacement. It’s expected he’ll replace her with a Democrat, but calls have been coming continuously for him to replace her with someone of similar genitalia:
“As a woman, as a feminist, I think it’s time to put another woman in the seat,” CNN contributor and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said. “I think Caroline Kennedy will bring a great deal to the table.”
When did race and gender become the primary consideration in chosing a replacement for the Senate? I only ask because I’ve never heard anyone tell a Governor to replace a white male with another white male so as to not upset the balance of the Senate. In fact, I’ve often heard of such replacements referred to as “opportunities” to bring about… You guessed it… Change!
I fully expect Governors to bring in people of the same party. No one is that free thinking (save for Jesse Ventura who, despite his utter idiocy and conspiracy theory dopeyness had the stones to tell the Democrats to eff off after the Paul Wellstone funeral and picked an independent to fill his seat) in the year 2008. That being said, it bothers me that we’ve essentially employed affirmative action in the Senate with replacements being seated. I don’t doubt the character of either of the two choices, either. Caroline Kennedy is a good person with a solid community resume, and Roland Burris was an Attorney General under one of the few Illinois Governors that aren’t in jail for corruption. That being said, is picking a Senator based on such arbitrary things as gender and skin color a good thing?
Let’s take a look at what happens if Kennedy does get the nod in New York State. Picking her means not picking Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat, and my choice for the seat. By not picking Cuomo, Governor Paterson would be passing on a man who is the current Attorney General of the State of New York, and a man who was the head of the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; a cabinet-level position. Caroline Kennedy, on the other hand, has absolutely zero experience and has actively avoided politics her entire life.
Who would you choose? And if you say Caroline Kennedy, on what basis other than gender are you making that choice?
As with most affirmative action-style programs, the choices made in the name of diversity and affirmative action often leave more qualified and better-suited people on the outs for positions they should, by all means, be entitled to. If Andrew Cuomo wants the position, he should be able to walk into David Paterson’s office and say “I want it,” and walk out with it. Instead, the Governor will have to contend with dopes like Donna Brazile who think the only requirement needed in the year 2008 is a vagina.
Something’s wrong there and it doesn’t take a gynecologist to see it.