“Playa” Michael Steele better not hate on Rushbo too much, or he’s going to find himself bounced right out of that RNC chair pronto. Think Progress has Steele’s indignant exchange with D.L. Hughley, who challenges him about the status of the drug-addled radio show blowhard’s influence among the Republican movers and shakers.
HUGHLEY: You know what we do, we talk like we’re talking now. You have your view. I have mine. We don’t need incendiary rhetoric.
STEELE: Exactly.
HUGHLEY: Like Rush Limbaugh, who is the de facto leader of the Republican Party.
STEELE: No, he’s not.
HUGHLEY: I will tell you what …
STEELE: I’m the de facto leader of the Republican Party.
HUGHLEY: You know what? I can appreciate that. But no one will actually decry down some of the things he says. Like when he comes out and says he wants the president to fail. I understand he wants liberalism to fail. Like, I get it’s not about the man. But it is still about the idea that he would rather have an idea fail so his idea can move to the forefront. And that would succeed. And that to me is destructive.
STEELE: How is that any different than what was said about George Bush during his presidency?
HUGHLEY: You’re absolutely — let me say something. You’re absolutely right.
STEELE: So let’s put it into context here. Let’s put it into context here. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it’s incendiary. Yes, it’s ugly.
CHUCK D: You do get a sense that he would say anything.
HUGHLEY: He influences the party. And I tell you what, you’re the first Republican I have talked to, and I have talked to a lot, to say he’s not the leader of his party. I have never heard anybody say that on any show.
So long will it be before the RNC chair has to bow down and beg for forgiveness from Rush?
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Speaking of Steele, how is he going to reel in those good-old-boy bigots in his party, as he attempts to bring more flava into the GOP? They just can’t help themselves. Take Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall, who compares the stimulus package to, of all things, slavery, saying it is “as much a chain as the ankle bracelets were to African Americans in the 1860s in this state”. Watch it below the fold.