Women on 20s

A Woman On The $10 Bill, Because Pandering To The Democratic “Base” Is One Thing The Obama Administration Can Do Competently

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Hillary-Money

I guess they couldn’t announce that they were putting Hillary on the $10 bill as the first female President because she isn’t dead. This also ruled out such equally worthy possibilities as Sandra Fluke, Gabrielle Giffords, Mattress Girl, Caitlyn Jenner and, of course, Michelle.

Yesterday’s announcement by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was inevitable the second a feminist started lobbying for it. Never mind that that her effort was ignorant and self-refuting: the list she generated of women proposed as potential faces on the currency contained none whose historical contributions to the nation come within miles of the achievements of Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, George, Tom, Abe and Ben. Some of the women—Patsy Mink?—are footnotes at best, one (Margaret Sanger) balanced her leadership of the birth control movement with ugly advocacy of white supremacy and eugenics,  and one of the most qualified candidates, Abigail Adams, didn’t make the list at all.

In a year in which President Obama’s party is trying to justify running a corrupt, unqualified, untrusted candidate for President on the sole justification that she has a vagina, nothing was going to stop his administration from putting someone on a bill for the same “reason,” as well as the other reasons, affirmative action, cynical group identification politics, and trying to deflect attention from this crew’s utter incompetence in matters of national interest and substance.

For example, the week has been filled with the jaw-dropping story of how the Office of Personnel Management was hacked by China as a result of utter, unforgivable management incompetence. You know, like the utter, unforgivable management incompetence (or worse) at Justice, HHS, the Secret Service, the IRS, the Veterans Administration, Homeland Security, the TSA, Hillary’s State Department and others—I don’t want to rub it in by running the whole list. You can read about the OPM calamity here, here, here , here and here for a start, then watch this to clear your palatte, as in throwing up. Continue reading →

Monetary Affirmative Action: “Women On 20s”

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments
Patsy Mink, almost certainly one of the 100,000 most significant Americans in our history.

Patsy Mink, almost certainly one of the 100,000 most significant Americans in our history.

Barbara Ortiz Howard was interviewed on CBS this morning, talking about her effort to put a female face on our money. The thrust of her argument distills down into simple math: there are a lot of women, so the money should reflect that. We are now in the realm of affirmative action, and this was a sitting duck for the effort. There is no criteria for being on currency, just death. It’s an honor, of course, and as an honor, should be taken seriously, though its hard to argue that the current slate of faces reflects any objective evaluation. Salmon P. Chase? Kennedy’s undistinguished three years in office didn’t earn him his place on the 5o cent piece; getting shot did.

I can’t work up much indignation over the campaign being played out on Howard’s website, Women on 20’s. Like all efforts to impose quotas and encourage group identification, the effort is devisive, and the site’s candidates to replace Andrew Jackson could serve as a primer on how affirmative action can have the perverse effect of diminishing the credibility and integrity of an accomplishment. Whatever one thinks about Jackson, he had a tremendous impact on the nation and its political culture, was a transformative national leader, and a historical figure of great significance. Quick: name the major legislative accomplishments of Patsy Mink, Shirley Chisolm and Barbara Jordan for example. Jackson towers over them in importance to the nation’s growth and long-term success. That doesn’t mean he has to be on a bill, but nobody will be able to argue again that being so honored means anything more than that a powerful constituency caught an accommodating Democratic President when he needed to bump a poll number. Continue reading →