I saw this late yesterday afternoon and I have to admit it is baffling to me.

Biden Admin Opposes Merit-Based Military Promotions, Wants Provisions For Race And Gender

President Joe Biden’s administration is fighting back against a new provision in the annual defense spending bill that would require military promotions to be based solely on merit rather than considering race or gender.

Why is it baffling? Because – cock-eyed optimist that I am – I always thought that’s how promotions pretty much went. In theory, the best candidate gets the next stripe or rank. Now, in reality is that true? Of course not, and we have a stellar airman in our family to prove it. A kid who came out of deployment to Djibouti with not one, but two joint awards from the Special Operations command (which he was not assigned to, but requested by name to fap over and help out) – both the Joint Service Achievement and Commendation medals – and do you think he could get promoted in the Air Force?

Nah. They have to tickee some stupid pre-determined “qualities we’re looking for THIS year” boxes to even be considered by their promotion board, which have zero to do with war-fighting or making the Air Force better. And they wonder why they’re losing their self-motivated, innovative superstars.

But, at least in the Marine Corps, if you were a stellar performer, I always felt you had a great shot going in, no matter who you were up against. Everybody’s face gets seen/record briefed who is in the zone. There’s no preselection, like Ebola and his compadres face – no “commander’s choice” BS.

I can’t speak to the other services, but I would hope they traditionally handle it with an open door policy. Everyone, however worthy, has a chance to get their shiny mug glanced at and if you came up short, usually that was on you.

Not your skin color or gender.

I do understand where the officer corps, especially as you get into the rarified ranks, starts to become a “beauty pageant,” if you will. Quotas, real and imagined, are probably a factor, thanks to Congressional pressure and outside interest groups who are always crawling up the DoD’s butt, since even before the first time I spit after hearing Pat Schroeder’s name. Believe me, as an enlisted WM (Woman Marine, which is no longer PC) in the 80s and 90s, we hated that woman.

This blows my mind. There has to be at least a veneer of merit based achievement counting for the bulk of your score, however it’s computed. Who wants to stand perhaps almost a point above another candidate, and still possibly lose because they had a vagina or darker skin or whatever the “special class bonus round” award was?

What in the Sam HELL?!

Like I told Ed yesterday, we all used to be green or blue and life sucked, or was wonderful equally across the board.

I’m curious if Congressman Jim Banks, who wrote this provision as well as one eliminating the DEIA efforts in the current version of the defense authorization bill, has done this as a preemptive strike, a clarification, or if he had word of directives to promotion boards calling for racial or gender quotas?

That would certainly be yet another disheartening slide toward the abyss for the military.

…Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who wrote both the merit and DEI pay limit provisions, told The Post that he “consider[s] the White House’s opposition to my amendments a badge of honor.”

“Wokeness is a cancer that will destroy our military from the inside out if we don’t stop it,” Banks said.

But the merit provision, unlike some of the other provisions, is not explicitly anti-DEIA.

It would simply require the Pentagon to make all military hiring, assignment, selection and promotion decisions “on the basis of merit in order to advance those individuals who exhibit the talent and abilities necessary to promote the national security of the United States,” according to the draft bill, which sets annual defense spending and policy priorities.

I did find it interesting that they tried removing photos when Mark Esper was SecDef, and it didn’t work out numbers-wise the way they wanted or felt they needed.

Let me also caveat that the “they” referenced is the Biden administration, which came into office as the numbers from the previous boards came back. Milley, Kirby, and the extremist/white rage hunting DoD DEI mob were doing the proportion math.

…Diversity among leadership dropped after photos were removed last year from Navy promotion packages, Vice Adm. John Nowell said during a panel discussion on diversity and inclusion at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference.

“I think we should consider reinstating photos in selection boards,” he said. “We look at, for instance, the one-star board over the last five years, and we can show you where, as you look at diversity, it went down with photos removed.”

…Williamson said there was an “assumption that there’s bias in the boardroom,” but a recent review of the Marine Corps’ promotion board process by the Department of the Navy’s office for diversity, equity and inclusion found that’s likely untrue.

“We’re doing a survey right now to see if there’s bias inside the evaluation system,” he said. “[If] we find out that there’s disparities within the way we do business within a service, we need to be intellectually curious enough to ask why and then figure out what we need to do.”

The comments come as the Defense Department works to address extremism and promote diversity in the military. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has spoken “very publicly that at the senior leaders’ level, we are not as diverse as the rest of the force,” Chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.

Call me cynical, but I’m not surprised at all “the numbers” didn’t make that group happy.

If you take a look at the DoD response to the proposed provisions – and particularly the one which includes the DEIA elimination and merit-based promotions – they are all major butthurt at the very thought of losing their focus on diversity…

…but nowhere in that litany of the wonders of inclusion, life experiences, and positive work environments does it say anything about war-fighting.

Promotion selection boards should be selecting the BEST in their field, not the prettiest, politest or best BIPOC volunteer in the community.

As a dear friend of ours – a brilliant retired Marine Corps LtCol himself and Ebola’s godfather – just told me:

“Select war fighters. Select ONLY war fighters!!!”

There can’t be an argument about that.