Just one more hurdle for the new sheriff

After nearly 30 years in a profession peopled largely by men, Sandra Hutchens has heard it all before. No woman climbs through the ranks of a sheriff's department or police department without someone suggesting that she sure was lucky she was a woman or it never would have happened.

Yeah, all those lucky women in law enforcement.

Hutchens, who has solid credentials with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, was appointed this week to be Orange County's next sheriff, but members of our chattering class felt compelled to diminish her accomplishments.

Oh, they'd be aghast to have it portrayed that way. We're not saying that the lady isn't qualified.

They're just saying she got the job over Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters because she's a woman.

In some schools of logic, apparently, those aren't necessarily mutually exclusive observations.

Melding the two strands of thought would produce this union: We think you're well qualified for the job, but if you weren't a woman you wouldn't have been appointed.

After Hutchens' appointment Tuesday on a 3-2 vote by the Board of Supervisors, the Orange County Register referred to it as an "affirmative action hire."

Blogger Matt Cunningham, on his Red County site, called the appointment "gender-driven."

I normally wouldn't draw attention to a blogger, except that Cunningham is not a flake or a johnny-come-lately. He's a serious political observer in Orange County and probably has a good-sized audience. But in Hutchens' case, he's committed the age-old sin that is visited only upon the minority member in society who upsets a white male: The minority status made the difference.

He writes: "I think gender was ultimately the deciding factor -- the tipping point -- in Hutchens' selection, and that anyone denying it played a role in her appointment is blind, dishonest or deceiving themselves."

Blogger, psychoanalyze thyself.

He's not arguing that Hutchens isn't qualified. He says she is, so I'll take his word on that. But he is compelled to note that her appointment was gender-driven. Since there are only two genders available for sheriff, why make the point unless the bottom line is that she was so clearly inferior to Walters as a candidate that her selection is problematic?

If Walters had been chosen, it wouldn't have been gender-driven. But it is for Hutchens.

And why does he (and the Register) conclude that?

Cunningham says the California Women's Leadership Assn. lobbied for Hutchens. Perfectly fine, he writes, no problem with that.

But now comes the analysis behind the gender-driven conclusion: Supervisors Patricia Bates and Janet Nguyen voted for Hutchens. OK, that's because they're both women, right?

Not exactly. Although Bates co-founded the leadership association (and is therefore suspect, I guess), Cunningham specifically noted that "I don't think Nguyen's vote stemmed directly from the fact Janet is a woman, or that Hutchens is a woman."

OK, if Nguyen is taken out of the equation and Cunningham similarly noted that board Chairman John M.W. Moorlach wasn't affected by the women's group, the gender-driven logic is. . . ?

Cunningham writes: "Bates and Nguyen tend to be more consensus, go-with-the-flow oriented and believed both candidates to be qualified." He went on to say, "The smart money was they'd likely vote with Bill Campbell and Chris Norby -- especially Nguyen, since Walters had the support of police chiefs and local electeds in her district."