Maybe Obama Needs a Binder Full of Women

Barack Obama's new Cabinet is coming into focus, and at this rate, it's going to look "more like the Augusta National Golf Club than America," quips Margaret Carlson in a Bloomberg column derisively titled "Obama to Romney: Send Me Your Binders Full of Women." All of Obama's new nominees are white men, and all of the people being talked about to replace Eric Holder are male as well. And it's telling that Obama was willing to go to bat for Chuck Hagel, but not Susan Rice.

Obama shouldn't need a binder. "Washington is bursting with qualified women," Carlson argues, like undersecretary of defense Michele Flournoy, Fed vice chairman Janet Yellen, or undersecretary of Treasury Lael Brainard. "Obama's problem is that he doesn't look beyond his nose," picking people close to him. Indeed, Jena McGregor at the Washington Post thinks that in itself is a reason for concern. Obama needs diversity not just in gender and race, she argues, but in people "who could add fresh perspective and alternative outside views." (More diversity stories.)