White man's burden

My sterling record of political predictions continues. It was barely more than a month ago when I speculated that Gov. Mitch Daniels would look at the two men and one woman who were finalists for the Indiana Supreme Court vacancy and choose the woman. If all three were equally qualified, I said, there "would be no particular reason not to" and it would remove Indiana from the very short list (along with Idaho) of states with no woman on its highest court.

But even among the "equally qualified," there can be degrees of excellence, and Daniels went with one of the men, Boone Circuit Court Judge Steven David, because he was impressed with the diversity of his experience to the point where he called him the obvious choice.

Indiana has had only one female justice in the state's history — Myra Selby, who served five years on the bench before stepping down in 1999.

Boehm, who announced in May that he would step down in September, had said he hoped Daniels would pick a woman.

Daniels said he would have loved to have named a woman, but in the end, David was the clear choice. “My task was to find the best person on the merits — I'm sure I did,” he said.

So we're not completely barbaric -- we did let a gal into the boys' clubhouse once.

This is all very distressing to editors of The Journal Gazette, who see it as incredible insensitivity from a governor whose top administrators are "overwhelmingly white and male."

The latest slight comes from Gov. Mitch Daniels, who passed over an eminently qualified female judge to appoint Judge Stephen (sic) David to the all-male Indiana Supreme Court.

[. . .]

While David, a Boone County Circuit Court judge, is well qualified for the post, his appointment is a disservice to Hoosiers