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(Via Flickr.)
As you may have heard already, yesterday was kind of a rough day for Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, capping a pretty rough week.
Steele’s confession on Monday that the GOP had no chance of taking back the House of Representatives in 2010 caused consternation among members of his party — and, among other remarks, led to a tempestuous conference call on Wednesday where staffers for Republicans in Congress heard this undoubtedly reassuring message:
Steele’s aides said on the call that their boss had hired an outside public relations firm to handle his book promotions and acknowledged that they have “no control” over booking his interviews or what he says in them.
Just what you want to hear from other members of your team about your supposed leader! Who promptly demonstrated more of his all-for-one-as-long-as-the-one-is-me attitude by saying to his critics on Thursday, “Get a life… If you don’t want me in the job, fire me. But until then, shut up. Get with the program or get out of the way.”
Amazingly, this did little to quell anyone’s unhappiness. And as questions continued to be raised about why Steele was promoting a book to begin with (one which other Republicans weren’t told about) while the finances of the party he’s nominally in charge of were going into the toilet, the GOP chairman responded Friday in just the way longtime observers could have predicted: He melted down totally, canceling one interview under the pretense of an “emergency meeting” while telling in another the ridiculously implausible lie that he wrote his book before becoming RNC chairman.
But really, how could anyone have expected better? Like his fellow GOP loose cannon Sarah Palin (who quit as governor of Alaska to take speaking engagements largely on the basis of how much they pay her), they only rose to prominence through the kind of brazen tokenism that Republicans suggest is at the heart of all affirmative action, but which Democrats would never dare to get away with.
They’re just cynically chosen fronts for the agenda of old, rich white guys who know they aren’t telegenic.* So why shouldn’t they be just as cynical and out for themselves? It’s what they’ve learned.
(*Yes, I hear what some of you commenters are thinking about the Democrats already. Give it a rest for one post, can’t you?!?)
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Tyler Perry needs to write a script for Steele. (And SP can have a part also.)
These people are simply, purely (bad) theatre.
butona
Steele and Palin together doing their all to lower the level of discourse for the US.
It’s difficult to insult the insufferable and mendacious adequately.
I’ll take umbrage at its being bad theater. I’m having a good time watching it. *g*
Spinocchio!
IOKIYAR
“(*Yes, I hear what some of you commenters are thinking about the Democrats already. Give it a rest for one post, can’t you?!?)”
I can tell you what im giving a rest, the democratic – republican football game. Im not a football fan and it dosent seem to make any difference in my life, or the lives of the people around me which side wins. im sure the republicans would like michael steele to stop doing interviews and sarah palin to go away for a year or so.Im much more interested in doing what i can to make sure Harold Fords candidacy dosent go anywhere in New York.
Steele is a gift. He’s a clown who can’t shut his mouth and makes the Dems look smart…maybe. He’s just killing the Rs and it’s fun to watch. They truly are riding the tiger.
Was Steele’s book ghostwritten like Palin’s was?
@8
“Tool” Steele—-made in America.
“(*Yes, I hear what some of you commenters are thinking about the Democrats already. Give it a rest for one post, can’t you?!?)”
Yes, that’s right, there’s the key to good politics, blaming one group and attempting to hold THEM accountable for their misdeeds instead of calling out the bad wherever it is found.
Good luck with that policy.
Miss McCain Blogette has a few words for Chairman Steele.
This is just too much fun!
That’s a funny link, there!
She’s a sideshow all her own. There are just too many fun republicans!
You know what’s ominously funny? If you read the links in the post, a lot of the things Steele is saying make sense from a grassroots-Republican viewpoint, and the Republicans might improve their standing if they did what he says.
Doesn’t look like there is much danger of that, though.
There is, of course, a sad side of this funny, continuing tale – Democrats, faced with doofuses all over the electoral map, including the Republican party’s masthead… are poised to not take even half of the advantage.
I could make a really funny comment here but I fear it might have racial overtones so I won’t!
Steele and Palin are not of the Borg. The Collective has taken notice and will reassimilate the defective droids.
Resistance is futile.
Book Salon upstairs with Ethan Brown’s Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder That Rocked New Orleans hosted by Suzanne
I had a few such thoughts.
Well, you all know my wacko theory: that Bilderberg, crony capitalism and the American ruling class encompass both Democrats and Republicans [in and out of Congress, in and out of the White House] equally in propelling the agenda where political and economic power coalesce in that revolving door corridor between New York and Washington.
The DNC/DLC Democrats need to quash, squash [or co-opt] genuinely progressive opponents of this docket. The liberal “extremists”, as it were. Same with the Bilderberger conservatives. The crony capitalist [and libertarian] Republicans have always been willing to use the evangelical Christian mentality of the value voter teabaggers [especially working class and lower middle class members] to split big chunks of the proletariat away from an economic agenda that more truly represents its pocketbook concerns.
I’m speculating there is a genuine concern now within the Newt Gingrich/Michael Steele faction of the GOP that the Republican Party will be hijacked by these bumptious value voting Palinistas. That, in other words, the political and economic interests of the RNC Republicans wedded to Wall Street may be put in jeopardy somehow by these conservative extremists.
The ruling class will use extremists, sure, but only insofar as it is able to control them in the end.
Oddball Michael Steele is a little easier to understand when you find out who’s coaching him:
http://bit.ly/3ppyiu
(satire)
How quicky would Palin come under their control if elected? In about the time it take to transfer $10 million to an offshore account?
THIS LINK IS REPORTED AS UNSAFE, IT MAY CONTAIN MALWARE OR VIRUSES.
Steele advocates a return to
That would be a winning strategy for Republicans, especially since they seem to have already figured out how to unite big business with Teabagger values. While Steele doesn’t seem to get that the best way to lie is to tell just the right amount of truth and then shut up, his approach is not without merit to the Republicans. While no one expects the Republicans to actually embrace those values, the simple perception that they had done so would probably be good enough.
They’re just cynically chosen fronts for the agenda of old, rich white guys who know they aren’t telegenic.*
Well, they may be cynically chosen, but they’re also idiotically chosen. Palin brings the tits, and Steele brings the black (which gives us the Republicans going for T & B), and they’ve both figured out that the old white guys are out to lunch and liable to leave them in the lurch, so they’re cleaning up the bucks as fast as they can. (Side note: I don’t particularly resent Palin or Steele for doing their schtick, I just wish we could drop the pretend political aspirations and just go straight to the reality TV. But I wish Steele would emulate Mickey Leland (I think it was Mickey Leland!) and before he gets canned, wander out on TV waving a tiny Confederate flag and saying, ‘We done sold the plantation.’ Just to see Joe Wilson drop from the heart attack.)
Cynical but inept operators have lost their touch and have been taken to the cleaners. Heh. Kinda like the D… uh, hrmm. Oops. I know! Kinda like the American people for about the last bazillion days.
max
['Might as well admit it, since ya just can't kick it.']
Great question.
After all, look how astonded many folks on the left are now watching Obama crumple his most important campaign promises one by one. All in the interests of Wall Street.
Who knows, Palin may already be well on the way herself into being co-opted. With such staggering sums of money [and power] at stake one has to assume the folks who run things behind the curtains will never allow anyone [left or right] who is truly intent on major reforms to get anywhere near the masters of the universe.
If she actually has a chance to grab some real power and does not cave, they will have to destroy her like Dean.
The Scream Syndrome as it were.
You go Palin Doing. What no Progressive with a soap box will ever do. Progressives are to passive to do.I’m for the change you want but this is all you deserve.You be glad this is the lawmaker that watching out for your children.1st All the law makers out.Your Vote
I admire Michael Steele.
I am reminded of low income workers who get no respect or concern from management…and steal the company blind. Home DePo comes to mind. They treat their workers horribly and have had a LOT of profit loss from stealing.
Michael Steele , I am sure , knew what he was expected to do. And how much respect he really got from management. So he did unto them before they could do him.
It is the new America. Go Michael
Well I am all for them straying off the reservation. In fact it has been very entertaining.
And who knows maybe something good will eventually be born from all this.
Two strong political parties in lock step with the status-quo (and them only representing a slightly different flavor of the same old stew)with both beholdened to their wealthy donors have a need to be shaken up and some fear put into them from time to time.
Great comment could be a diary still kind of Off Topic:)
Sorry Milly I clicked the wrong window I thought I was on the other thread I’m sorry.
Home Depot was bought by Mitt Romney’s Bain capital I wonder how many other GOP run companies have theft or other low worker moral problems?
Saudis fire 1400 rockets into Yemen
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Michael Steele: Going rogue.
The Repubs hate their black person as much as they hate the black president.
ain’t gonna be much left of the gop once the grifters and snowbillies get done with them
the grifters are fleacing the teabaggers too
whodathunkit ???