President Obama's New Cabinet Could be "Less Diverse Than Bush's"

Members are stepping down, being replaced

The White House will announce a handful of new Cabinet nominees this week, and President Obama has handpicked Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) to replace Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, White House counterterrorism and homeland security adviser John Brennan to replace disgraced General Petraeus as CIA director, and former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) to replace Leon Panetta who is stepping down as Secretary of Defense. 

It has not gone unnoticed that the nominees are all, indeed, white men, as NYU professor Paul Light, who studies political appointments, said, “It’s evident that he’s going to have a less diverse cabinet this term, possibly even less diverse than the George W. Bush cabinet."

Additionally, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, a Chinese-American, could be replaced by a white man, too, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. Granted, Obama's first choice to replace Clinton was U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, a black woman, but she dropped out of the running, and it is still possible that the replacement for Lisa Jackson, the first black woman to serve as Environmental Protection Agency administrator, may be a woman, and that the now-vacant Commerce secretary slot will go to Xerox chief Ursula Burns, also a black woman. (Washington Post)

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