If the problem were really affirmative action, then there would be more Jayson Blairs at the NYTimes.

The fact that there the Blair case caused such an uproar within the Times, and that it’s so notable, suggests there are not other Blairs at the Times.

If Blair is the only ‘Blair’, it suggests that there’s something else involved than *just* an affirmative action hire, which might have a racial element, but is just as much due to Howell Raines’ pride.

The New Republic has had *repeated* problems with dubious reporting by Jewish writers, but nobody’s going around saying that TNR is tainted by philo-semitic preferences in hiring.

Why is it, exactly, that a bad hire of a black person is taken as being support for dismantling affirmative action, while any other bad hire is not taken as evidence for any kind of widespread pattern?

And, yes, white people do get hired in such circumstances. Case in point – the proverbial secretary/mistress who can’t type. Or the son of the boss who’s an idiot. Or the sinecure for a political supporter. Incompetents get hired and promoted all the time; often because of who they are, or what the do for the boss, or who they know.

I mean, hell, if you want to see someone who failed to the top, just look at George W. Bush.

But because he’s not black, there’s no easy label to pin on what happened.

It also illustrates one of the best criticisms of Affirmative Action. Forget about equality under the law. Forget about fairness. Concentrate solely on the fact that Affirmative Action hurts the very people it is intended to help.

Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and to a greater extent, Shelby Steele and John McWhorter have all focused on this aspect of good intentions gone awry.

Radley, this would be a good topic for one of your Foxnews columns, no?