Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Steele, the Un-Obama

Some divine Anthropologist must be balancing the racial books for America, giving us an African-American as president who is a superbly talented politician and, to lead the opposition, another who can't seem to get out of his own way.

Michael Steele's un-Obama skills were on display at a party luncheon yesterday, and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank reports:

"The RNC chairman has managed to get into trouble with comic regularity during his first few months on the job. His latest brush with trouble had come only minutes before the lunch, when Fox News broadcast an interview with Steele in which he complained that party leaders--the very people he was about to have lunch with--have 'their knives bared' for him."

Milbank catalogues Steele's self-inflicted wounds as head of the Disloyal Opposition:

"He called Rush Limbaugh 'incendiary' and 'ugly.' He described abortion as an individual choice. He spent $18,500 decorating his office, which he had called 'way too male for me.' He offered some 'slum love' to Indian American Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, and speculated that the GOP base rejected Mitt Romney 'because it had issues with Mormonism.'"

In fairness, it's unlikely that anyone could galvanize today's remnant rabble of what was once the Grand Old Party, but Steele's ineptitude is looking more and more like a grotesque example of the Affirmative Action that Republicans always used to denounce.

The question now is how to depose him without adding accusations of racism to their heavy load of political baggage.

The opportunity may come up today at a meeting of state party heads who, if they curtail his power over funding, will be calling his threat to quit if they do.

Steele ended his rallying of the troops at yesterday's luncheon with "In the best spirit of President Reagan, it's time to saddle up and ride."

Into the sunset perhaps?

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