Daily News letter-writer Richard Sirmons: “Do you wonder why some of our leaders are so lackluster? They are lackluster, yet incumbent, because they pander successfully for votes from the affirmative-action crowd?”

So is Sirmons suggesting that leaders who pander to the votes of white bigots, or religious extremists successfully are spared the curse of being lackluster?

Also: “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was supposed to end the double standard but affirmative action has created a double standard of greater magnitude.”

First, let’s be clear, the Civil Rights Act (and the Equal Employment Act of a couple of years later) were written because American minorities and women were massively discriminated against. It’s good to keep in mind that it wasn’t a general longing for racial equality but specific, ugly discrimination.

And affirmative action isn’t even remotely comparable to the discrimination under Jim Crow, let alone of greater magnitude. Heck, if you accept the statement in many career guidebooks about how many jobs are acquired through networking and personal contact, rather than just talent, then affirmative action has much less effect on merit-based success than networking does (and it counts less at some schools than legacy admissions).

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