If it meant picking a random woman from somewhere in Europe in order to make a point about equality - probably not.
From the background comments, Ashton is well respected, and has the right qualifications - more so than the other contenders, apparently - so she got the job, at the cost of putting Mandelson's and perhaps Blair's nose out of joint.
I'm not seeing that as a fail.
The priority seems to have been to pick someone who could do a good job first - for local definitions of 'good job' - and be a woman second.
I'm not convinced that was the wrong way to do this.
But Fran's point that there is little concern, in fact, for gender equality, and that Miliband would have been taken had he been available, seems fair to me.
I disagree that "there is little concern for gender equality". However, "gender equality" doesn't trump all. Barroso and Zapatero would have huffed and puffed but in the end ZP would not have vetoed a candidate on the basis that they were not a woman. So you can actually have "Miliband would have been chosen had he made himself available, because the concern for gender equality is not overriding. Which is not the same thing as "there is no concern for gender equality".
The overriding concern here was, apparently, "no Blairism" (and that means no Blair, no Mandelson and no Hoon).
So "no to Blair" overrides "gender equality". Go figure. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
But the massive fail that we should be happy about is the hit the Blair faction took. Anything but Blair, anything but Mandelson. And two distinctly un-Blairy appointees, so no ersatz Blair around. :-D
