Asked about his column's gender message, Jaffe writes by e-mail:

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"My reporting showed that four people have been principal players in Mayor Gray's inside operation. They are female, which is a gender. I wanted to point that out."

My reporting shows that there are five choice positions atop the Examiner masthead. The top four are male, which is a gender. (Disclosure: TBD is no more diverse).

In pleading his case for gender neutrality, Jaffe contends, "If the four had been male, I might have made that point, as well."

Yeah right! Just invert the language and see how that would've sounded: "Gray has four men running his political and personnel shop"; "The four gentlemen let Gray down."

The four "ladies" mentioned in the piece are Lorraine Green (adviser), Linda Wharton-Boyd (communications boss); Gerri Mason Hall (chief of staff), and Judy Banks (former interim personnel head). Boyd consulted with her colleagues about responding to Jaffe's blast but ultimately declined comment.

Yet finding offense-takers requires little effort. "It was insulting to women," says Barbara Lang, CEO and president of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce. "Women aren't tough enough and if men had been in the job there would have been a different outcome — that was my interpretation."