How dare the GOP base base its leadership decisions on qualifications and seniority rather than gender and skin color!

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced who will chair all of the major House committees in the next Congress. And it turns out they all have something in common besides party affiliation: they’re all white men.

There isn’t a single woman or minority included in the mix of 19 House committee chairs announced Tuesday – a stark reality for a party desperate to appeal to women and minorities after both groups overwhelmingly rejected Republicans just weeks ago in the presidential election. The one female committee chair that House Republicans currently have, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), is stepping down because her term is up. While there are still two lower-tier House committees awaiting a chair assignment — the Ethics Committee and House Administration — neither committee has any women or minority members.

At least one Senate Democrat was quick to point out that something is missing from the Republican lineup.

“Disappointed to see House committee chairmanships in the 113th Congress will not include a single woman. -PM,” tweeted Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who included a link to Boehner’s press release announcing the chair posts.

I know, right?! The shear lack of estrogen will clearly have a serious impact on our country’s policymaking.

If you’re familiar with this blog, you’re probably familiar with my many rants about gender-based politics.  If you’re not familiar with this blog, let me summarize them for you: I HATE IT.  I HATE politicians (many of them female) who think they are entitled to hold a certain position or receive certain recognition just because they were born with two X chromosomes.  I’ll admit, I’m jealous of men in some ways — they can pee standing up, for example.  But the fact that men will now hold all of the GOP’s major committee chairmanships isn’t one.

Is the Republican Party anti-woman?  Hardly.  President Barack Obama himself only has a single female among his top advisors and his administration pays women less than their male counterparts, but I don’t hear Daily Kos screaming about it.  The non-news story even notes how the GOP has had a female committee chairwoman leading the influential Foreign Affairs Committee for the last two years.  Before Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen took over the committee, it was led by two Democrats — both of them old, white and male, but I digress.

The GOP just named four women to its 2013 party leadership team.  Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash) is the new House Republican Conference Chair; Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kansas) is conference vice chair; Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) is conference secretary; and Rep.-elect Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) will represent freshman members in party leadership.

The Left’s problem with the GOP is not that its anti-women, it’s that it’s not pro-liberal women.  Each one of these very capable ladies represent broken barriers of the gender politics of the past, yet their contributions and positive examples are overlooked simply because their name is followed by an “R”.

So spare me the phony outrage.  It’s time we all directed our outrage toward something a bit more worrisome.