Trouble in paradise:
A battle over control of the party’s purse strings has erupted at the troubled Republican National Committee, with defenders of Chairman Michael S. Steele accusing dissident RNC members of trying to “embarrass and neuter” the party’s new leader.
Randy Pullen, the RNC’s elected treasurer, former RNC General Counsel David Norcross and three other former top RNC officers have presented Mr. Steele with a resolution, calling for a new set of checks and balances on the chairman’s power to dole out money.
The powers include new controls on awarding contracts and spending money on outside legal and other services.
Talk about a vote of confidence! At this point, we have to begin to wonder if Michael Steele will make it to the midterm elections. I’m doubting he will.
Also, thank goodness the adults are in charge! That can’t be said enough.
harlana pepper
and with Arlen Specter defecting . . .
ain’t it heartbreakin’?
Lawd, I need to write a country song about it.
Gus
Steele is perfectly capable of embarrassing himself.
Comrade Darkness
“embarrass and neuter”
It’s all about the truck nutz.
John Cole
@Comrade Darkness: I was actually surprised the old Republican favorite of “ram this down my throat” didn’t show up as a quote.
Corner Stone
This is kind of turning into something similar to the whole “How long can Rummy keep his job?” debacle.
Fortunately for us, I think the RNC can keep bringing the stupid long after we run out of WillHe’s and WontHe’s.
R-Jud
How will he go teabagging if they neuter him?
Shinobi
Man, I am so running out of popcorn. The republican meltdown is just riveting.
Left Coast Tom
Where were the people who want to restrict the ability of the RNC chair to spend money when the RNC was buying clothes and accessories for the entire Palin family?
SGEW
Indeed.
Mike S
I’m not sure anyone is “trying” to embarrass Steele. They don’t need to try, he’s doing a bang-up job of it himself.
Dennis-SGMM
The GOP has become a cult rather than a political party. Anyone sane enough to effectively run the thing has or shortly will have been ostracized by it.
Jay C
Wow – just what the Republican Party needs! On top of an electoral drubbing, ineffective obstructionism to a popular new President; a spasm of ideological self-“purification”; and a prominent Senatorial defection – now they can indulge in circular-firing-squad infighting in their central organization!
If it wasn’t so enthralling to watch it would be sad….
Naaahh, who’m I kidding?, it’s great!!!
More GOP lucha libre!!!!
…..
Comrade Dread
I find it more amazing that they actually are forcing a convention on voting for a resolution to call the Democrats so cialists.
They really should just fire Steele and nominate Glenn Beck.
** Atanarjuat **
If these humiliating episodes continue, pretty soon Michael Steele might have to keep his phone off the hook to stop the hemorrhaging.
Along those lines, I wonder, does Michelle Bachmann still think that Steele’s “da man?” Perhaps Norm (“Never give up! Never surrender!”) Coleman can weigh in on this and give Mike some advice on how to hang on despite the odds.
-A
Dennis-SGMM
@Left Coast Tom:
Those were “Freedom Clothes.” Their purchase was an act of selfless patriotism.
joe from Lowell
You know what the Republican Party’s problem is?
Michael Steele. No, seriously, if someone else was party chairman, they’d be pwning the politiks. They’d be all in Obama’s base, killin’ his d00dz.
Corner Stone
Has Steele actually hired any key staffers yet? Or is he just using the RNC budget for coke and hookers?
Roger Moore
@R-Jud:
He’ll just have to give rather than receive. I think that’s the real goal; the others want him to suck
themup to them to keep his job.Hunter Gathers
It seems that Bizzarro Obama might be in over his head a bit.
NonyNony
Begin to wonder? Hell I’ve been wondering that since he got the job.
The real question is who do they replace him with? I’d like to nominate Sean Hannity as the head of the RNC. For a variety of reasons:
*) As long as they’re taking marching orders from loud-mouthed talk-radio guys, they might as well put one front and center. Limbaugh is too smart to take it, and Beck is too crazy for anyone to really offer it to him[*], so Hannity becomes the obvious choice.
*) It’s always fun to see critics be thrust into positions where they actually have to get things done. Watching Hannity attempt to run something like the RNC would be comedy gold.
*) Hannity would suddenly have to deal with Limbaugh, Beck and the other nutters criticizing him. See “comedy gold” above.
How hard would it be to start a “Draft Sean” movement, I wonder?
[*] Note that the RNC may be loonier than I’m thinking and Beck may not actually be too loony to be nominated. If so a “Draft Beck” movement might be equally hilarious.
Dennis-SGMM
You have to hand it to Steele for radically changing the GOP. Before, it was tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts and tax cuts.
Now it’s tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, obstructionism and name calling. That has far fewer tax cuts in it.
JL
Hat tip from TPM
Do you suppose there is a mole in Michelle’s office feeding her erroneous information? It’s tempting to call her office and ask who Hoot is.
Fencedude
@JL:
That would be too funny.
Trolling on the most massive scale ever.
r€nato
I recognize one of those names. Randy Pullen is a local GOP official who has worked to push the state GOP ever further to the right especially on immigration issues.
This is all kinds of awesome. The lunatics are in firm control of the asylum.
Ned R.
I think she meant the “Give a Hoot Don’t Pollute-Stuart Smalley” tariffs, which would explain her confusion about both the seventies and Al Franken.
NonyNony
@JL:
“I’m good enough, and smart enough, and gosh-darn it people like me!”
I’d love to believe it, but from what I’ve seen politicians tend to surround themselves with people who are very much like themselves. Smart politicians tend to have smart staff members. Lazy politicians tend to have lazy staff members. And crazy-ass nutbar politicians? Let’s just say that their staff members have the best hand-manufactured tin-foil caps in the Capitol and leave it at that…
Dennis-SGMM
@JL:
Not to mention the corrosive effects of the Hoot Gibson-Buddy Holly Act.
dmsilev
@JL:
I’m becoming increasingly convinced that she *is* a mole, or at the very least an avant-garde performance artist producing an extended commentary on the nature of absurdity in national government.
-dms
Zifnab
@joe from Lowell: I don’t even know. He’s not exactly bursting with that Howard Dean vibe. I mean, our DNC chairman took all sorts of shit from the establishment after ’04 and he wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty with the base.
But Dean actually, you know, raised money. And got recruits for office. And increased party enrollment. Steele hasn’t gotten to that yet.
lawnorder
You play Wow :P
Bubblegum Tate
Oooooh, I get it now. Those FMBs she was rocking were actually FreedoM Boots and not, you know, the more traditional definition of FMBs.
Shinobi
[2. Trade] [Repbs] WTB New chairperson, must be leet, good dps, armory checks, and good gold farmer
Dennis-SGMM
The ostracisms will continue until our numbers increase:
Huntsman slammed for embracing civil unions
LD50
I believe the correct expression is ‘hookers and blow’, thankyouverymuch.
JL
@Dennis-SGMM: Wow, I guess they didn’t read Snowne’s op-ed piece in the NYTimes today.
StrangeLuck
And here I thought this post was going to be on First Aid, Fishing and Cooking!
http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=730
MattF
It’s the “itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny tent” theory of politics: When the tent gets smaller, we all get stronger.
Dennis-SGMM
@JL:
At this rate it will be Bachmann-Beck for 2012. Glenn Beck will be drafted for the VP slot because they’ll need a moderate to balance the ticket.
gnomedad
@Dennis-SGMM:
Could I have tax cuts instead of the baked beans, then?
MattF
@Dennis-SGMM
Hah. “Bachmann-Beck: Because our IQ’s have to add up to 100.”
The Moar You Know
Words fail me to describe the clusterfuck that is the Republican party. I’ve never seen a major political institution unravel like this in my life.
jrg
Steele on Arlen Specter: “I’m sure his mama didn’t raise him this way”
I’ve never seen a politician as foolish or short-sighted as Steele. Calling out a centrist Republican as having a “left-wing” voting record, after losing as bad as the GOP did?
I’m honestly starting to believe that there will not be a Republican party in the future. These people are f*cking morons.
slag
Wow! It’s been only three months and Republicans are already resorting to regulation as a way to help them curb their money problems. Ronald Reagan is rolling in his grave.
gnomedad
The few. The pure. The Republicans.
Zifnab
@MattF:
Fix’d!
@slag:
Haha, I was kinda thinking the same thing.
“We’re from the RNC legal department and we’re here to help!”
Cat Lady
@Dennis-SGMM:
That’s so… amazing. Huntsman would have worried me as a nominee – articulate, very attractive and not crazy. I guess I’ll put my money on Joe Barton, since he stumped Steven Chu.
Bachmann/Barton. Dumbest and WTF 2012.
valdivia
This is OT–I rarely watch tv but I am home grading today and have MSNBC in the background and I see they are making a lot of hay of some question on the NBC poll that says Obama is doing too much. I thought they had put that particularly idiotic idea to bed in the Village? They keep pushing it and pushing it ? We need better media. Sorry rant over.
Just Some Fuckhead
Permanent Republican Majority, Bitches!
Zifnab
@The Moar You Know:
There was the Greens after 2000. That’s about the closest I can think of, though.
Cat Lady
@valdivia:
They can’t have Republicans on anymore because they’re too absurd now even for cable, so the Village has to manufacture their own outrage. The media is just starting to realize that the right wing wurlitzer is now making fart noises. Just enjoy.
Punchy
Ummm….there’s an ad on my screen here of a cartoon guy saying to his mom holding a bible, “yes mom, i know that’s where poo comes out, but not nearly as often as penises go in…”
WTF?
Hob
@R-Jud: Google “Neuticles”.
TheFountainHead
So confused, I thought the GOP hated regulatory policies!!
Dennis-SGMM
What’s the over/under on the GOP loading up on vodka and sleeping pills, duct taping a plastic bag over its head, and then covering up with a red-white-and-blue shroud so that it can wake up in a better place?
valdivia
@Cat Lady:
yes I guess I should enjoy, they are just so incompetent.
John PM
@valdivia:
I to have been wondering about the “Obama is doing too much” talk, and I think that I finally have the reason for it. By doing to much, Obama does not give the press and the Repiblican Party the time or the ability to push one criticism until it sticks. Contrast this with Clinton from 1993-94. The only thing I remember Clinton focusing on was health case, which ended as a colossal failure. While I am sure that Clinton did other things during his first two years, his main focus was health care, and both the Republicans and the MSM were able to focus almost exclusively on that, especially Hillary’s role. The MSM and the Republicans cannot get the same traction on Obama because he is not limiting himself to doing one thing. Also, he is not engaging them, and with the release of the torture memos, the Republicans are also in the position of having to defend torture, which only leaves them with time to yell the ocasional “soci–ist” at Obama, to no effect.
slag
@Zifnab: I’m guessing that between the changes going on in the DNC and the RNC, the development of Organizing for America, and the Executive Office’s leadership methods, we’re living in an organizational behaviorist’s wet dream right now.
The Moar You Know
@Zifnab: I said “major”. But point taken. It’s one thing to have a circular firing squad, it’s another thing entirely when everyone’s firing an M-203.
sgwhiteinfla
President Obama smacked down the “he is doing too much” meme today in dramatic fashion.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/04/29/obama-seizes-the-100-day-news-cycle/
Now, I’ve got to say that — that some of the people in Washington have been surprised. They said, “Boy, he’s so ambitious. He’s been trying to do so much.”
Now, maybe they’re not accustomed to this, but there’s no mystery to what we’ve done. The priorities that we’ve acted upon were the things that we said we’d do during the campaign.
(APPLAUSE)
I mean, it’s not — it’s not like anybody should be surprised. The policies we proposed were plans we talking about for two years, in places like this all across the country with ordinary Americans. The changes that we’ve made are the changes we promised. That’s what you should expect from a president.
You may not always agree with me, but if you take a look at what I said I was going to do when I was running for office and you now look at what we are in the middle of doing, we’re doing what we said we’d do.
Ash Can
Hell, I’m surprised he’s still there.
This whole issue of the RNC/GOP leadership vacuum, apart from being immensely entertaining to me, has me wondering about a couple of things. First, do none of the more talented leaders in the GOP want the RNC job for fear of having to deal with whomever it is who’s actually running the GOP — i.e., the person or persons who, e.g., strongarm apologies out of Republicans who publicly criticize Rush Limbaugh? Second, has the purity trollage in the Republican Party finally reached the point where no one wants to work with anyone else because everyone’s applying their own personal conservatism litmus tests to each other and no one but the individual tester passes?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Nothing says “The Party of Fiscal Responsibility” like announcing to the entire world that the chairman of your top organizing committee has to be kept on a short leash because he might just take the money and run.
How about this slogan for the New Majority:
Vote GOP – the party of people who have to wear ankle bracelets. Because we care, and you can never be too careful.
valdivia
@John PM:
I completely agree with your analysis and think they will keep pushing it. The thing that gets to me is that this is a total Village fabricated narrative and they pushed it for months and months and now they have numbers that reflect their conviction (but only in one poll, the Wall street Journal one which coincidentally has the lowest approval numbers for Obama). Obama will keep doing his thing and they will keep hammering about it.
valdivia
@sgwhiteinfla:
thanks for that. So happy to see him smacking it down.
slag
@sgwhiteinfla: Awesome. I was just talking about that issue with a friend because it reminded me of why I was less enthusiastic about Obama in the primaries. I was worried that Obama wasn’t “left” enough then and even said at the time, “If he’s running this way now, what’s he going to be like during the general?” Much to my surprise, there was very little change–aside from clarifying some of the vagaries–from the primary to the general election campaigns. And, even better, there’s been very little change from the campaign to the presidency (with the huge exception of state’s secrets, which I’m glad to see the courts starting to take care of).
All in all, I feel like I’m being re-conditioned to start expecting a politician to do what he says he’ll do. Even though I don’t agree with all of it, it’s kind of nice.
JasonF
That Bachman clip is so awesome on so many levels. Leave aside the boneheaded reference to “Hoot-Smalley,” and the ahistorical assertion that it passed on FDR’s watch (in fact, President Hoover signed Smmot-Hawley and President Roosevelt campaigned against it). She is also completely wrong on President Coolidge — the recession that preceded the Roaring Twenties occurred during the Wilson and Harding administrations, and President Coolidge saw GDP growth throughout his tenure. But I think there’s a general trend on the kooky right to deify President Coolidge as history’s unsung genius, so I’m not entirely sure whether Rep. Bachman’s historical misstatement is evidence of a lack of knowledge or an intent to rewrite history.
Ash Can
@JL: When I read your post, I thought, “Oh, come on; there’s no way she really said that. That can’t be right.” Well, silly me — not only did she really say that, it came within the context of yet more hopelessly mangled history. (Edit: As JasonF points out directly above.) I’ve supplied the link to the TPM story because the whole damned thing is just laugh-out-loud funny, from beginning to end, and everyone should read it.
I wonder how long she can keep this up before someone figures out that she’s a danger to herself and snags her with a butterfly net. She must be a handful for her aides; they must have to stay sharp 24/7 to keep her from getting lost in SE or wandering out in front of a Metrobus.
The Moar You Know
@JasonF: Errors that egregious are not an accident.
R-Jud
@Hob:
I’ll pass, thanks.
DMG
Randy Pullen? The only reason people don’t realize he’s nearly as batshit insane as Michelle Bachmann is that he doesn’t get as much airtime…not even in Arizona.
donr
Garbo played a Soviet agent in Lubitsch’s 1938 Ninotchka. Her opening line: “The latest show trials were a great success. From now on there will be fewer, but better Russians.”
Clark
I find it amazing that Republicans are disciplining Steele over his handling of the party’s financial affairs, as opposed to you know, acting like a total buffoon when he’s in front of a camera.
Maus
And how much of it’s being funneled to his sister/family?
tc125231
@Dennis-SGMM:
I just started laughing uncontrollably. Dang those rock and roll communistas!