The Bush administration, it appears, is suffering from a serious but little-noted problem: a "marriage gap." That is, a top female official is almost five times as likely to be single as her male counterpart.
In a fact-filled survey of 367 top administration officials by the National Journal, 33 percent of the women, but only 7 percent of men, were single. This may suggest that, to get ahead, it's better for women to be single. Could be that is the reality vs. the rhetoric of "family friendly."
As for Democratic National Committee chief Howard Dean 's slap that the GOP is "pretty much a white Christian party," the survey found that about 83 percent of Bush officials are white and 71 percent are white Christians -- deducting 9 percent listed as Jewish and about 3 percent as "no religion."
In contrast, based on our extrapolation from only somewhat comparable studies of the Clinton administration, it appears roughly 73 percent of Clinton top officials were white. Religious affiliations were not included in those studies.
The survey, to be released Monday, also spotlights favored undergraduate schools (Yale tops the list) and graduate schools (Harvard ranks tops here).
Maybe She'll Use California Champagne
Don't delay! There's still time to get up to the New York City docks this afternoon to watch Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao give a speech and christen the newest ship in the Norwegian Cruise Line's fleet, the Pride of America.
A Labor Department news release says it is the "largest U.S.-flagged ship ever built" and will have a "a 100-percent American crew." Federal law requires that U.S.-flagged ships have an American crew and be paid U.S. wages. The ship will cruise the Hawaiian islands, which foreign-flagged ships cannot do unless they also stop at a far-off foreign port.
Chao's presence seems only fitting, since her father was in the shipping business. Norwegian Cruise Line is a subsidiary of Star Cruises, which is owned by the Genting Group, Malaysia's largest multinational company.
The ship's "Best of America" theme, the department's media advisory says, "honors the country's rich history, culture and unity." The ship was built Lloyd Werft shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany.
Who Knew What -- and When
The liberal blogomania over the media's cover-up of the "Downing Street memo" -- the British intelligence notes of meetings indicating, among other things, that the administration's decision to invade Iraq was made long before anyone else knew about it -- continues unabated.
The fuss reminds us of a front-page story by colleague Glenn Kessler , written in January 2003, two months before the invasion, parsing President Bus h 's decision-making process on Iraq.
The article includes this anecdote: "Only later did it become clear that the president already had made up his mind. In July [2002, about the time of the Downing Street memo], the State Department's director of policy planning, Richard N. Haass , held a regular meeting with [then-national security adviser Condoleezza ] Rice and asked whether they should talk about the pros and cons of confronting Iraq.
