TNGOP Like The Taste Of Steele

6 Responses to “TNGOP Like The Taste Of Steele”

1. realopenminded writes
   January 30th, 2009 7:55 pm

   It brings a “black face” to go at Obama. Easier him that a southern white guy who belongs to a “white only” country club. You Rep. are slick, but not that slick.

2. Davy writes
   January 30th, 2009 8:52 pm

   Good lord.

   This is such a gimmick.

   Just like Palin.

   Fixing the Republican party is a task that’s way bigger than one person.

   But I guess as a black man the media will have to give him time, no matter how irrelevant his talking points are.

3. damned if we do damned if we don't writes
   January 30th, 2009 9:13 pm

   Repubs elect black chairman and libs call repubs racists for doing it. If repubs had elected white chairman libs would be saying repubs were racist for rejecting the black candidate.

4. Elrod writes
   January 30th, 2009 10:39 pm

   “Tough” is not a word I’d use to apply to Michael Steele.

   Here’s a gem from the Washington Post editorial in 2006 when he ran against Ben Cardin for Senator from Maryland:

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301436.html

   Money quote:

   “As lieutenant governor, Mr. Steele had at best a marginal impact, even on his handpicked projects. He spent three years studying the death penalty but produced only a memo that has not been made public. In his campaign literature, Mr. Steele took credit for working with legislators to achieve “historic improvements” in the state’s teacher pension system. But the lead lawmaker on the pension bill, state Sen. Edward J. Kasemeyer (D-Howard), bluntly told The Post’s Ann E. Marimow: “I never heard from him.”

   There’s much more on this. Steele is an empty suit and a self-promoter. Tough he is not.

   I applaud the GOP for not going with a racist white Southerner like Katon Dawson. At least they recognize they have an image problem; and the TNGOP is at the heart of it. In many ways this is a repudiation of Bill Hobbs, Robin Smith and the rest of the bigots who run the TNGOP.

   If Steele really is “tough,” he’ll kick the social conservatives back into the closet where they belong and start making the party attractive outside Dixie, the Western Plains and Deseret (Mormonland).

5. Tom Paine writes
   January 31st, 2009 1:50 pm

   Hmm, a little history is in order here, I think.

   Let’s take a walk down memory lane and look at an article from the online magazine, Slate, from 2006 when Michael Steele was a senate candidate in Maryland, shall we?

   Is your previous statement still “operative”, Robin?

   Steele Shovel
   How to dig a giant political hole.
   By John Dickerson/Slate
   Posted Thursday, July 27, 2006, at 5:55 PM ET

   When in a hole, stop digging. This is good advice in life and crucial advice in politics. Unfortunately, no one seems to have shared it with Michael Steele, a Republican candidate for the Senate from Maryland. Steele’s slogan appears to be: “More shovels!”

   Steele, who is the leading Republican for his party’s nomination, committed a gaffe, according to Slate founding editor Michael Kinsley’s classic definition: He accidentally said something true in public. During a 90-minute lunch with Washington reporters, Steele said the R for Republican next to his name was like a “scarlet letter.” He went on to say the GOP-controlled Congress should “just shut up and get something done,” that the Iraq war “didn’t work” and “we didn’t prepare for the peace,” that the response to Hurricane Katrina was “a monumental failure of government.” He said having his party leader President Bush campaign for him would be a disadvantage. He said these things “on background,” agreeing with reporters that he would not be quoted by name. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post attended the lunch and published the remarks, attributing them to a “GOP Senate candidate.”

   The papers had barely landed in suburban driveways before even Starbucks baristas knew that Steele was the source. It was obvious the speaker wasn’t in Congress, and there are only a handful of “competitive Senate races” from which a sleuth could divine the identity. Once outed, Steele produced a variety of responses, all of them bad. They have been so bad as to constitute a kind of minitutorial on what a candidate shouldn’t do when caught telling a truth:

   1) Fib. Steele says the lunch was off the record. Participants at the steakhouse say it was clear that the discussion took place under the ground rules that Milbank used. Steele’s press secretary seems to have known this, too. Political analysts agree that it’s best to hold off on spectacular fibbing until you’ve actually been elected.

   2) Say it was a joke. Asked on Maryland radio about the “scarlet letter” remark, Steele said: “So I was making a joke about the fact that in this political climate, in Maryland, being a Republican is like wearing a scarlet letter. That’s all it is.” Phew, that clears that up. It’s good that Steele didn’t say something really hilarious, like being a Republican in Maryland is like having an inoperable disease or losing a few limbs in the shredder.

   3) Look like a weasel. Steele could have embraced his gaffe and won political points for speaking the truth about an unpopular war and an unpopular party. It might be refreshing to have someone who spoke that plainly wander into the Senate cloakroom. By backing away from his remarks, Steele wins no points from anyone. He looks sneaky for only speaking truth under the protection of anonymity and dishonest for trying to disown his remarks once he was identified as having made them.

6. Davy writes
   January 31st, 2009 8:39 pm

   Republicans really don’t know what to do right now.

   They’re grasping for straws.

   As the economy worsens, Republicans will lose their support from anybody other than the small group that thinks the Republican Party is the political wing of the Roman Catholic Church in America.

   What’s really funny is that all the racists who were brought out of the woodwork to vote against Obama will now go back into the woodwork, they will never, ever support anything run by a black. Their own political interests cannot overcome that.