Look on the bright side, David Axelrod. This Beacon story might finally distract people from that instantly infamous photo of the all-white staff at Hopenchange HQ.

Why does our president hate women?

Female employees in the Obama White House make considerably less than their male colleagues, records show.

According to the 2011 annual report on White House staff, female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, which was about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees ($71,000).

The Obama campaign on Wednesday lashed out at presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney for his failure to immediately endorse the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, a controversial law enacted in 2009 that made it easier to file discrimination lawsuits…

It is not known whether any female employees at the White House have filed lawsuits under the Ledbetter Act.

Follow the link for Beacon reporter Andrew Stiles having fun revisiting The One’s various other slights to women over the years, from his all-male golf outings to former communications director Anita Dunn describing attitudes in the White House as fitting “all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.” Some of the things O’s taken heat for in this vein are overblown — this one pops to mind — but I’m keen to hear them explain why there’s an income disparity among their own staff. In some industries there may be a nondiscriminatory reason for a gender gap in pay, e.g., men may be overrepresented in jobs that require lots of strength or dangerous duties, which in turn may pay better because of the risk. But that’s surely not the case in the cubicle utopia of the West Wing. The most obvious explanation in an office setting is that men tend to earn more because there are more of them in senior positions. Is that true, champ? If so, how come?