Sigh. Another entry for my People’s Republic of Maryland file. According to the Washington Post, the central planners and social engineers on the Montgomery County Council are in a huff because there are not enough minority firefighters. Is this because the libs are discriminating against non-white firefighters? No, it’s because a race-blind hiring and testing process has produced results the council doesn’t like:

“The current test may skew toward applicants who have previous volunteer firefighting experience, officials said. In Montgomery, that means a largely white pool of applicants.”

Imagine that. A test that favors firefighters who have – gasp! – experience. A council member has proposed diverting $200,000 away from emergency funds to rectify this discrimination against inexperienced and incompetent applicants and “study” how the test can be changed to produce more minority firefighters. In addition, Montgomery County executive Doug Duncan “has ordered that the next recruit class, scheduled to begin this fall, be put on hold if necessary to increase the number of minority candidates.”

Never mind that the county is currently experiencing a firefighter shortage. To hell with public safety.

Oh, well. Putting political correctness before saving lives is nothing new here in Montgomery County. Doug Duncan was the man who hired former (thank God) police chief Charles Moose.

Update: LaShawn Barber gets it: “They plan to dumb down the test. Anything they do to make this test easier to pass will entail lowering the standards. Let’s see, what sort of aptitude test will afford “greater opportunity” to blacks? A test given in ebonics? Hip-hop slang? Lots of pictures? If rewriting a test so that blacks can pass it isn’t outrageous to blacks, nothing is.”

So does reader Joe McBride: “I suggest that Montgomery County offer their firefighter test only in foreign languages such as Spanish, Arabic, and Swahili. That should take care of the diversity problem.”

Yep.