I hope this doesn't hurt Richard Cohen's tender sensibilities

But if he wants to find real discrimination he need look no further than how the Bush Administration administered its lovely little occupation. From the Special Inspector General's office:

"Pre-war reconstruction planning assumed that Iraq's bureaucracy would go back to work when the fighting stopped," it said. "When it became clear that the Iraqi bureaucracy was in widespread disarray," occupation authorities "had to find coalition personnel to perform these tasks."

"The U.S. government workforce planning for Iraq's reconstruction suffered from a poorly structured, ad-hoc personnel management processes," the report said, calling hiring practices "haphazard."

At one point, officials asked civilian and military agencies for personnel "but did not prepare detailed job descriptions because of time constraints," the report said.

In late summer 2003, a new recruiting team was set up in the
Pentagon's White House Liaison Office, based in part on the "transition team" model used to staff new presidential administrations. The team quickly hired hundreds of new temporary employees, "but some possessed what proved to be inconsistent skill sets," the report said.

Perhaps if they didn't hire people from AEI or the Heritage Foundation. You know like Michael Ledeen's daughter Simone?