The White House was not pleased with one aspect of the staging for the President’s visit next week.

The staging last week went right down to the demographic makeup of the seating area behind the president and panelists. The three rows included 60 people — about evenly split along gender lines — intended to be a cross-section of Alabamians. The age range covered what appeared to be three generations and included white males, white females, black males, black females and a few Hispanics.

But a few state officials said afterward that the White House was not particularly pleased with the lack of minority representation throughout the rest of the 4,000 seats in the AUM gymnasium. Tickets to the event — as is the case at other stops on the tour — were distributed through the offices of GOP congressmen and state officials and by administration-friendly interest and advocacy groups.

I wonder if anyone gave them the real answer to this issue, that you couldn’t have found enough black Republicans in the whole state to even halfway fill that arena. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but the White House shouldn’t complain about diversity when it restricts the tickets to those who support the President.