Oh, how all events do conspire against him:
A month after Michael Steele became the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee, key party leaders are worried that the GOP has made a costly mistake — one that will make it even harder for them to take back power from the dominant Democratic Party.
Steadily becoming a dependable punch line, Steele has brushed back Rush Limbaugh, threatened moderate Republican senators, offered the “friggin’ awesome” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal some “slum love,” called civil unions “crazy” and promised more outreach to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings” via an “off the hook” public relations campaign.
[….]On the organizational side, Steele does not have a chief of staff, a political director, a finance director or a communications director. Last week, one of the two men sharing the job of interim finance director was forced to resign.
[….]“I know some folks in Washington feel that they’re kind of on the outside of this — that they don’t have the day-to-day blow by blow of what I’m doing,” he said. “And that’s exactly how I like it. I want to be about the business of putting in place a good infrastructure that will enable me to go out and build a better brand, stronger brand, for the GOP. And I won’t get there by tattle-telling every day what I’m doing.”
Not to mention that a former campaign official is being investigated by the FBI.
This Friday afternoon seems like the logical time to fire him. The best part will be that Rush will claim victory.
robertdsc
Katon "Whites Only!" Dawson, FTW!
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
They should pick a spoofer to take over.
At this point, the spoofers offer saner, more competent leadership than the genuine Republicans. Even if the spoofer tries to run the party into the ground, they’ll still manage the party better than any of the Gooper options out there.
calling all toasters
Will Limbaugh claim that Steele was elected head of the RNC because Republicans were "highly desirous" of seeing a black man succeed? Stay tuned.
joe from Lowell
The best part will be that Rush will claim victory.
Especially since it will drive home for Republican office holders that they’d better not cross the guy who keeps talking about wanting the country to fail.
Trinity
Deep in my heart I know it is wrong to revel in the misfortune of others…but damn….the Rethuglicans do serve up some deliciously delicious schadenfreude.
mmmmmmmm……fail……
4tehlulz
>>Jim Dyke, a communications consultant to Steele
Dykes to watch out for?
Napoleon
But he is Da’ Man!
Comrade Stuck
Maybe he’ll play the updated version
Mike the Magic Negro
Comrade Jake
Matt Lauer is putting the screws to Steele pretty good on GMA right now. I’d say Steele is toast.
Studly Pantload, Would Be Minion of John Cole
@ Napolean @ 7:
Fixed an’ shit, for translational accuracy.
DougJ
No, he be Da’ Man. Don’t shortchange Michelle Bachman’s ability to keep it real with street lingo.
John S.
No, Napoleon…He BE da’ man.
Your vernacular had best step correct.
bootlegger
@Napoleon:
Get your ebonics grammar straight.
dmsilev
I continue to be in awe at the reverberations of the whole Rush-Steele-etc. fight. All of the repressed tensions inside the Republican coalition have been let loosed at once. OK, not quite all; we would need to get a good religious right "ungodly" rant thrown in to complete the set. That aside, watching the base attack the GOP leadership is great fun.
And to think that it all started by Obama quietly advising a few GOP Reps to quit Rush. A single pebble, starting an avalanche. Why do I have a feeling that inside the White House political office right now, the operative slogan is "All your base are belong to us"? (The White House is, after all, aware of all Internet traditions).
-dms
DougJ
Do you mean the Today Show? How many minutes in? Maybe TPM can put it up.
John S.
Crikey, what a bunch of like-minded snarkers WE are!
Napoleon
@bootlegger:
Sorry, I have a terminal case of suburban whiteness.
bootlegger
Holy crap, that is no less than four corrections for ebonics grammar.
Did anyone catch Colbert’s smackdown of Steele yesterday?
Studly Pantload, Would Be Minion of John Cole
@ Comrade Jake @ 9:
Wish I could view, but I seriously need to get the fuck to bed.
bootlegger
@Napoleon: Me too, that’s why I would never try to speak this way to someone (snark excepted of course). Bachman, now that is one lady with all the screws loose or already missing.
Mazacote Yorquest
Shorter GOP— "The Dems have a colored leader who waves a white flag– we need to be the opposite."
joe from Lowell
Sorry, I have a terminal case of suburban whiteness.
Excuse me, miss? I speak Jive.
Napoleon
By the way, it seems to me that one of Steele’s biggest problems is he is too high profile (ie, he is a media wh–e) and is unwilling to just not address any question that is not narrowly related to running the RNC. Did Dean give as many interviews when he was picked to run the DNC? To the extent he did give interviews my recollection is for the most part he avoided discussing (except in the most milktoast way) anything involving inter party matters or specific Democrats.
John S.
By the way Doug J…
Your post title reminds me of Tommy James’ I Think We’re Alone Now. Probably because my dad’s gold record for engineering it is staring at me from the wall of my office.
But the application of the chorus (and then we steal away, into the night…) to this scenario is really fucking creepy.
taodon
No, Steele’s biggest problem is that he isn’t white. No one in the Republican party was ever going to take him seriously. Had he kept his mouth shut like a good negro, none of this would have occurred.
DougJ
There are a lot of songs that contain the line “I’ll steal away” or “we’ll steal away”.
Studly Pantload, Would Be Minion of John Cole
@ taodo @ 25:
Yeah, I said I had to go the fuck to bed. Blow me. But I cannot agree with your summary.
Steele’s problem isn’t that he’s black. No, that’s the RNC’s problem. They elected him to be the black-Republican, anti-Obama. Steele’s problem is that he’s a quite-probably-corrupt, yes-man who doesn’t have the guile to run a counter insurgency against the Girl Scouts (long may the live; bought the Mrs. a box of their cookies just last evening). Witness the growing pantheon of white Republicans who can’t seem to bring themselves to even seemingly offend Jabba the Rush without following up with several jilted-paramour apologetic 3:00-AM drunken VMs.
Seems worth distinguishing.
jibeaux
no, thanks.
Who talks like that?
This, I disagree with. I think the R’s, in typical superficial fashion, do think that they might actually be able to get more minority votes by swapping out their figurehead instead of, you know, changing substantive policies. You may recognize this strategy as the echo of the brilliant "oh yeah, well we’ve got a girl, too, ladies" thinking which led to the crushing victory of a Sarah Palin buoyed by the female vote.
I think they desperately wanted an A-A face for their party, and their problem is that the highest profile one they’ve got is the former lieutenant governor of Maryland with no particular accomplishments and nothing particular to recommend him, which of course is often a feature rather than a bug for those guys, and voila, here we are.
DougJ
It has zero to do with his being white or black. He’s an idiot. Idiocy knows no race, no religion, no creed.
Trinity
@DougJ: …and no party. I’m a Dem but stupid is stupid…I don’t care who you are.
T Paine
True, DougJ, but these days idiocy does know a particular party.
gbear
Sweet Lady Mary by The Faces, for one.
Could P.J. O’Rourke do worse than Steele?
Dennis-SGMM
There are any number of reasons to remove Steele. That Limbaugh will be seen by many as the proximate cause while the Republicans are feebly attempting to avoid being relabeled "The Dittohead Party" is just too delicious.
Josh Hueco
If only Steve Gilliard were alive to comment on this.
KCinDC
Another correction comment: Studly’s "He da man" is actually the correct grammar for the dialect in question, but other people’s "He be da man" follows Michele Bachmann’s personal version of African-American Vernacular English.
cleek
this is the one that i keep thinking of.
NonyNony
@jibeaux:
Is Steele the highest profile African American in the GOP? I would have thought that J. Kenneth Blackwell would rank up there as well. He got rejected in the race, but mostly because the higher-ups were looking for someone less loony than Blackwell. They thought that Steele was less crazy. Apparently they were wrong.
As far as who’s going to replace Steele – well, who did Limbaugh like back when it was up between Steele, Dawson and Blackwell. IIRC, he was pushing for Blackwell. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the GOP cave to him again and pick whoever he anoints as the RNC chair this time around.
Studly Pantload, Would Be Minion of John Cole
@ gbear @ 32:
Shhh! From your lips to no fuckin’ anybody’s ears! O’Rourke could likely fill in in Full Spoof Mode and actually gain those monkeys’ butts a few points in the polls even if the DOW crashed to 1000 and polling places were to move to under bridges to better serve what was left of the middle class.
Let us vow to keep O’Rourke forever consigned to the Peanut Gallery, from whence he can better serve both parties of his country.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
If Steele goes, then my next choice for the job would be Tom Delay.
His ugly mug on tv regularly, paired up with his pal Rush, would mean ten, maybe twenty years of Dem majorities.
Come on GOP, you can do this.
Dennis-SGMM
There’s even Robbie Dupree’s quintessentially-80’s "Steal Away."
Cyrus
This is too bad. Steele himself may be no smarter or competent than the average Republican, but at least his presence pushes Republicans toward change, and/or demonstrates they know they need to at the very least look like they’re changing. I want to see the social/cultural base of the Republican Party marginalized, mocked and reduced to writing letters to the editor about school budgets and sex ed programs, but objectively I don’t have any animosity to the party itself as an inanimate institution. There has to be some major opposition party, and it might as well be an existing one.
If Steele manages to win this fight with Limbaugh, Limbaugh’s demographic of know-nothing proto-fascists who would give the John Birch Society a bad name will have lost a bit of control of the party. It makes Rockefeller Republicans and Eisenhower Republicans a little more likely to return. (Assuming for the moment that Democrats stop being Eisenhower Republicans.) If Limbaugh wins, that becomes less likely.
Schadenfreude is great, but in the end, Michael Steele is the good guy here. Or at least, the less-bad guy.
BDeevDad
OT: John, the previous post breadcrumb is set wrong and is skipping the actual previous post.
JL
Once more information comes out about his misuse of campaign funds, he’s gone.
JL
@ThymeZoneThePlumber: NO! My TV set would not last the day.
NonyNony
@Dennis-SGMM:
I call bullshit.
I see no evidence at all that the Republicans are even feebly attempting to avoid being relabeled "The Dittohead Party".
Studly Pantload, Would Be Minion of John Cole
@ KCinDC @ 35:
You are quite correct, and I realized after I’d posted this and immediately read the others’ correction.
Ever read Steven Pinkers’ "The Language Instinct"? It was, I believe, in this book that "ebonics" dialects were compared point-by-point to "correct" American dialect and showed to be lacking in no fairly-intuitive grammatical rules or nuance. In fact, the point was that no culture, no matter how viewed as primitive by others, comes up short when it comes to a rich, developed language when studied by linguists.
And that’s a part of why Bachmann’s kind of ridicule pisses me off.
DougJ
Correct. He “be da man” means he is the man at this particular moment whereas he “da man” means he is always the man. It’s two different forms of the verb to be, just like with Spanish and “soy” versus “estoy”.
Pasquinade
Limbaugh Travels to Canada for Surgery
After American doctors refused to perform what they consider ‘unnecessary elective surgery’, conservative talk-radio pundit and neo-Nazi icon Rush Limbaugh traveled to Canada today, where physicians report he is resting comfortably after a 54-minute operation. During the procedure, known as a ‘liprectumy’ and performed under local anesthesia, surgeons successfully removed the lips of RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Georgia Representative Phil Gingrey from the porcine pill-popper’s considerable ass.
Mr. Limbaugh’s insurance company declined coverage after two medical opinions both concluded that with 44 months remaining until the next Presidential election, performing the surgery now would provide only temporary relief at best.
oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/3993
jibeaux
@NonyNony:
Personally, I don’t like my crazy diluted. I will be satisfied with no less than Alan Keyes.
Dennis-SGMM
@NonyNony:
Heh! I guess the [” “] badges were kind of a giveaway.
Montysano
I have no love at all for Steele, but it must really suck to be the MSM Chew Toy of the Week.
Josh Hueco
He be dumb, man.
DougJ
No, he dumb, man.
Tim F.
Funny how Republicans don’t want to work under a, uh, guy with campaign finance issues.
over_educated
Guys, guys, the Republican party’s problem is obvious: too many moderates like Steele diluting the party brand. The purges will continue until moral improves.
gbear
If one more person posts that song, I’m going to have to stop reading this blog forever.
Lee from NC
@dmsilev:
Or "I’m in yur base, killin’ yur d00dz". That seems somewhat apropos. Also.
One after another, Obama seems to be able to reduce his competition to sniveling children throwing a tantrum that they didn’t get the box of cereal they wanted that had the really special awesome prize in it. Waaahhh!
Dennis-SGMM
@Montysano:
Politicians have pretty thick skins. What boggles my mind is the number of them who have lately accepted high profile positions, or the nominations to them, when they knew full well that there were skeletons in their closets. Did they think that they’d get less scrutiny or is a closet full of skeletons SOP for most of them?
Josh Hueco
When Steele says that he wants the GOP to be "Goldwater, smoothed out on the Burkean tip, with a Reagan feel appeal to it," then we’ll know he’s finally lost it.
Studly Pantload, Would Be Minion of John Cole
@ Lee from NC:
Ow! The stinging tears! The wine flying out my nose! The wakened-wife’s glare…
Dennis-SGMM
gbear,
Sorry about the earworm. Here; make it go away with Bus Stop’s rendition of Kung Fu Fighting.
Bwahahahaha!
Ned R.
@Josh Hueco:
That’s just poison.
Dennis-SGMM
@Josh Hueco:
You use your tongue prettier than a twenty-dollar whore.
stickler
While I like the tenor of this post and the comments, one thing sticks in my craw:
How, exactly, would the GOP go about "firing" Steele? Wasn’t he elected, and all? Who would do the "firing?" Tom Delay?
Short of Steele himself doing the right thing and stepping down, I don’t understand how anybody’s going to make him go anywhere.
Ned R.
@stickler: How, exactly, would the GOP go about "firing" Steele? Wasn’t he elected, and all?
Presumably there’s something allowing for a no-confidence vote — do they have their internal by-laws up on their site?
Original Lee
@Dennis-SGMM: Why stop with Bus Stop?
I give you: The Chipmunks!
Tsulagi
Doing a heckuva job so far. Transitioning and rebranding from the Party of Bush to the Party of Rush Submissives aspiring to tweet and hip hop.
Stay the Course.
Bulworth
Who would actually fire Steele? Does Steele have a boss? I mean one who actually signs his checks.
maya
The real question is: Will Steele’s successor be Rush-ready?
RIP, Michael. We hardly knew ye.
John S.
Naturally.
If it wasn’t for the giant shining LP hanging on my wall, I’m sure something more appropriate would have come to mind.
chrome agnomen
we’ll steal away—to the dark end of the street.
how apropos.
LV-426
When I first saw the movie it seemed like an exageration, not a big one but stll an exageration. Not anymore. Rush is Lewis Prothero.
Keith
I suspect that because the RNC is apparently being run like the McCain campaign that this can only be good news…for John McCain!
John PM
Thinking logically, there has to come a point where some Republicans are actually going to tell Rush, et al to go f-ck themselves and either disassociate him from the party or leave the party themselves. I know, I know, the first two words of my first sentence do not apply to the current Republican party. I just cannot see the Republican party going on like this much longer. Either they all line up meekly behind him and he actually runs for president in 2012, or the party breaks in two.
GSD
Shorter Limbaugh:
Steele should shut up and know his place in the GOP. That is on the front lawn of the Republican Plantation holding a lamp.
-GSD
chrome agnomen
we must bail out the GOP!! they are too big to fail!!
gbear
@chrome agnomen:
we’ll steal away—-to the dark end of the street.
Now THAT’s an earworm I can live with. Great great song.
edit: ‘THAT’s’ is a link to a song. Going with caps kind of obscures it. Edit wouldn’t let me change the link, so hence this note. oops.
jlo
I nominate the hip hop Colonel Sanders to head the RNC.
Cain
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
And unlike Joe, Tom is a real plumber!
cain
Dennis-SGMM
@Original Lee:
That is just wrong.
Les Miserable Fulcanelli
@John S.: ‘How Many More Times’ by the mighty Led Zep. Steal away now, steal away…
Please, no one even joke about Rasputin DeLay entering national politics again, we haven’t reached peak wingnut velocity yet and we need to build up our tolerance gradually.
mannemalon
Morning Joe crew repeatedly clowns Steele
Oh man, this is bad. By bad I mean great.
bootlegger
@KCinDC: You are correct sir! In fact, now that I think about, Bachman’s "he-be" is the same as the old racist joke "There are 4 kinds of n—–s, the he-bes, the do-das, the wend-as, and the mon-backs". Sorry, I can’t lower myself to type the punchline.
Ravi J
Who is next? Alan Keyes?
juancho
i may have it wrong but i think
"he da man."
&
"he be da man. "
may mean two slightly different things
in (US) Black English– where the "be" means something that is usually or normally the case. As in:
"he be home on Sundays, but he gone right now."
A native speaker can correct me. ?