March 27.  Who’s setting up the pool?  I got five bucks.

Michael Steele will outlast this.  No one (at least no one who wasn’t a viable national figure) actually wants to head the party right now, which is why he got the job in the first place.  Now that he’s taken on Rush and grovelingly gotten away with it, spoken heresy about abortion, and also uttered heretic views about homosexuality, he’s gotten to the point where he can actually say whatever the hell he wants to and will not be removed from the job.  He even said the GOP doesn’t have any credibility and is still getting a paycheck.

He’s safe.  No one else wants to lead right now, no one else can lead them, and removing him would look bad.  By picking him and also being the party against affirmative action, the GOP put itself into a position where to let him go would be to suggest that he was picked for his tremendous ability while also admitting that he had none.  And if there’s any bedrock principles in that party, it’s that it never admits a mistake.

The GOP is waiting for the financial investigation to take him out, and they’ll blame it on Democratic prosecutors and their racist political motivations.  Barring that, the GOP will have him until the 2010 elections.  After that, Steele will move on to spend more time with his family.

Under, I’m guessing Friday the 13th. An unlucky day for liberal bloggers, no more Steele ‘foot in mouth’ disease.

I think he will outlast this deadline, simply because the GOP can’t think of a graceful way to can him so soon without looking like a bunch of crackers. After all, the runner-up was Katon Dawson, the man who belonged to an all-white country club. Please god, let that guy rise into the position if Steele goes.

I think he’s safe until Republicans around the country start losing elections or the money flowing into the coffers from small-dollar donations dries up. Then they’ll have a reason to put the bootprint on his back. Until then, the only thing he’s doing is providing a laugh-a-minute bad PR for the GOP.

My Steele clock, running since he said he won’t resign,  is still ticking…

The white supremacist who Steele barely edged out for the job is organizing a no confidence vote to take place immediately after the Special Election to fill the House seat vacated by Kirsten Gillibrand when she was appointed to the U.S. Senate to replace Clinton.

That NY-20 election takes place at the end of March.  Katon Dawson’s coup will occur immediately afterwards.

They are going to kick out an inneffectual black man to replace him with a white supremacist whose main reason for becoming a Republican was school desegregation in the South.

The whole thing is gut bustingly delicious.

Whoa…I’d read the abortion stuff, which was confusing enough that he can argue he meant almost anything with that ‘state’s rights’ bit and ‘Roe v. Wade was improperly decided’.

But I hadn’t seen him comparing homosexuality to being black before.  Wow.

He’s toast.

I wanna be Junkman Smooth the Blackbortionist. That sounds sweet. Too bad I’m a paleface.

“I think he will outlast this deadline, simply because the GOP can’t think of a graceful way to can him so soon without looking like a bunch of crackers.”

But Pam, do they even bother to try and pretend they aren’t a bunch of crackers anymore? 

If you’re a Republican, you pay very mild lip service,  and then proceed to say whatever bigoted thing leaps out of your mouth, with no shame or even a hint there might be something wrong with bigotry (racism, hatred for LGBTs, anti-immigration, hatred for all non-Christians, etc.).

At least that’s the way it seems…

I must confess I feel a modicum of sympathy for the Steele.

I seems to be genuinely good-natured (yes, yes, the dangers of this kind of thinking, hey I’m not voting the man), and I’m sure he pays a heavy political price for even these mild attempts to challenge bigotry in the GOP.

Of course, then the apology to Limbaugh and the application of GOP principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings” kicks in.

The fact remains that he’s the black face of the Republican Party at a time when the Democratic Party has a leader who happens to be black.  There would be a woman leading the GOP if Hillary was President.

The GOP’s foundation is best found in the most subversive book written in the past few decades: Bonjour Laziness.  The chapter on corporate language is a better business guide than anything ever written anywhere, and it can be summarized as follows: whatever is stressed in the language of a business is most lacking.  And the GOP itself says it is modeled on business.  Thus, the GOP is a business that harps on personal responsibility, fiscal morality, sexual abstinence, freedom, independence from foreign energy, and an end to racism.  It matters not a bit that its policies have nothing to do with these things, but corporate branding isn’t about reality.  Only image.

They’ll keep Steele unless he starts to go pale.

What I said in my post on the matter this AM:

I do kind of feel sorry for Michael Steele at this point. If the brother’s strategy is to moderate the party by stealth, he needs to look up the word in the dictionary. In its current incarnation, the GOP is a no-tolerance zone on two issues—abortion and anything to do with The Homosexual Agenda. It’s in the party platform. I have seen no evidence the party is trying to move to the center.

What’s an even more asinine quote in the same article is when Steele completely undermines his party platform’s support for the federal marriage amendment and appears to have no f*cking idea about what kind of rights his “gay friends” deserve.

Let’s talk about gay marriage. What’s your position?
  Well, my position is, hey, look, I have been, um, supportive of a lot of my friends who are gay in some of the core things that they believe are important to them. You know, the ability to be able to share in the information of your partner, to have the ability to-particularly in times of crisis-to manage their affairs and to help them through that as others-you know, as family members or others-would be able to do. I just draw the line at the gay marriage. And that’s not antigay, no. Heck no! It’s just that, you know, from my faith tradition and upbringing, I believe that marriage-that institution, the sanctity of it-is reserved for a man and a woman. That’s just my view. And I’m not gonna jump up and down and beat people upside the head about it, and tell gays that they’re wrong for wanting to aspire to that, and all of that craziness. That’s why I believe that the states should have an opportunity to address that issue.

Of course his friends would have “some of the core things that they believe are important to them” if they could have a civil union, for instance. But Steele adamantly and very vocally opposed that just recently. When asked on February 23 if he favored them, he said: “No, no no. What would we do that for? What are you, crazy? No. Why would we backslide on a core, founding value of this country?”

So I guess the question is, what does M.C. Steele want for his gay friends? A cobbled together set of legal contracts they have to shell out for and a hope and a prayer the state will honor hospital visitation? What exactly, from his POV, is wrong with civil unions then? It makes no sense.

Why would they get rid of him now? If he doesn’t stay until 2010, then they can’t blame all of their parties woes on him. You do realize that as the months go by they will blame him for absolutely everything from their losses in the 2008 elections to the passage of Roe v. Wade 36 years ago. The GOP are the best in the world at creating scapegoats and Steele is going to be the biggest one of them all.

I’m confused: does he loathe his job, or just anything resembling a consistent position on any topic? I think M. Steele’s problem is that he loves microphones, and loves rambling into them while pandering to whoever he thinks he should pander to that day. He likes making strong statements (like being homosexual is like being black) because he’ll get invited back to the microphone, but he’s comfortable with any kind of contradictory strong statement.

It actually puzzles me that people try to analyze his statements as though they were the reflection of some kind of policy preferences. To me it’s been clear ever since the “govt doesn’t create jobs” statement that this guy has no clue whatsoever, no ideas at all, and will say anything just to be in a bit of limelight. Not that that’s worse than most republicans (arguably it’s better than being a fundie), but I don’t waste my time trying to make sense of a weather vane either.

So I guess the question is, what does M.C. Steele want for his gay friends

private contracts like John McCain said he could accept during the campaign?

I think Mr. Steele just said that he’s super understanding that his gay friends want certain core freedoms and that he totally understands and agrees with that.

Which is why they should stop being gay and get married. Duh.

What a jerk.

Junkman Smooth the Blackbortionist.

Holy moly that’s sweet

It seems that he’s pro-choice in the sense that he wants states to choose what women do with their wombs, rather than the federal government or women themselves.

It’s hard not to feel at least a little bit of sympathy for Steele. Here’s a Republican with more than three functional interconnected neurons and he’s in charge of leading the party of the insane, preferably (for him) not off the cliff they’re careening towards with increasing speed. So he obviously knows on some level that the positions being espoused by the rightest of the right are really no longer popular in this country; perhaps he even has a notion (as his confused response regarding homosexuality demonstrates) that these positions are not just unpopular but even abhorrent. But on the other hand, he’s got to placate a bunch of nutjobs who have their knives out for him and would dump him, apparently for a white supremacist, if given the chance.

Now that this interview has hit the web, I think he’ll be done by tomorrow. I would’ve given him the end of the month, but now that he’s said abortion is “an individual choice”, they’ll shit can him straight away.

Be fair.  The GOP didn’t think they were getting Junkman Smooth, they thought they were getting Foxxy Love.

“Here’s a Republican with more than three functional interconnected neurons”

Jerry Vinokurov,

He’s a black man in the RepuliKKKan Party - I think that precludes your statement being true.

I, personally, welcome Michael Steele back to the reservation.
We have room in our big tent for another Blue Dog.
At least Steele has a better grasp of politcs than Evan Bayh.

Nope, he has to “resign” or they keep him:  here’s the plan: in a few years (decades) the electorate’s memory being as short as it is, the ReThugs will begin revising what happened and use Steele and Palin to answer charges of chauvinism or racism.  They know they got beat in large part this election by the registration and votes of the African American community.  They’ll be out with lots of photos of Steele in the black community saying , see we’re the party of color, especially if they run the Weeziana exorcist.  You betcha (ick!)

Then again here’s a quote from a news release from the ultra right Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, supposedly after talking with Steele:

“He assured me as chairman his views did not matter and that he would be upholding and promoting the Party platform, which is very clear on these issues. It is very difficult to reconcile the GQ interview with the chairman’s pledge.”

I mean, “as chairman his views did not matter?” - could Steele have been intentionally ironic here?  As in, even though “I’m supposed to be chairman, Rush is the leader so what the hell does it matter what I say?”

phalamir,

He’s a black man in the RepuliKKKan Party - I think that precludes your statement being true.

You know, political allegiance is a complicated thing, doubly so when coupled with race. Is there a plausible reason for an intelligent black man to be a Republican? That’s entirely possible; honestly, that’s a thorny thicket I’d rather not get into. I would prefer to focus on the actual effects and arguments of the people involved, and from that it’s hard not to conclude that Steele is at least somewhat more self-aware than the majority of the Republican leadership. Of course, I don’t want to give him too much credit (i.e. “I don’t actively persecute gay people” is not the same as “I support full equality for all regardless of sexual orientation”) but he at least appears to be capable of some measure of empathy, which is rare in the upper echelons of the GOP. That’s going to prove his undoing eventually.

“Is there a plausible reason for an intelligent black man to be a Republican? That’s entirely possible”

I don’t think so.  There may be plausible reasons for a black man to be a conservative, or some sort of member of the theoretical Republican Party that is sane; but the current GOP sees Simon Legree as too liberal and hippie-dippie - if they withdraw anymore into their Southern Plantation Uber Alles shell any deeper, they will have to declare Nathan Bedford Forrest as their personal Lord and Savior.  Backing an organization that uses coded (and in the South, often uncoded) language to pine for a time when you would be on par with a table lamp is not a sensible or intelligent way to exist.  If he stood up to the knuckle-draggers, you might could make a case he was trying to change things and argue he was enacting a grand strategy of fifth-columist-like evolution of the GOP - but every time he makes any statement even obliquely critical of the Imperial Wizard wing of the Republicans, they snap a whip and he obsiqueously backs down, shouting hosannas to his white masters; instead of giving interviews, he ought to just send the journalists a DVD of “Birth of a Nation” to cut out the 3-4 hours of time before he backs down from any semi-sane utterances he makes and verbally teabags the corpse of Bull Connor.

I think it’s perfectly understandable for anyone who’s rich to be a Republican, regardless of race, color or creed. Your money can buy you exemptions from the ravages of your parties’ policies.

I agree he’ll last into 2010. They picked him on the basis of “Hey, it worked in ‘Blazing Saddles’” so why not?

Atrios always seems to win with the under bet. I’ll go that way too.

As much as it doesn’t make sense for homosexuals or black people to be Republicans, it really doesn’t for white folk either. White people suffer from inadequate health care. White people depend on social security. White people march off to war under Republican presidents and return home to a veterans’ health system that collapsed under Republicans. The economy does better under Democratic presidents. Etc.

Only the stupid and the “I’ve got mine” crowd have any reason to be Republicans. I imagine that Steele is in the latter group, despite evidence to the contrary.

I honestly think Steele is a Republican because he likes the attention.  I can’t see any other reason.

It seems like Michael Steele is getting closer and closer to the same revelation that Gen. Colin Powell had before he endorsed Barack Obama on Meet the Press. At this point, Steele either has to dump the Republican Party or help shift its focus. I’m hoping he does the latter, because that Party needs some serious reform if they want to stay relevant. It’s something they should have done 10 years ago.

I actually commend him for being confused about the abortion issue. It shows that he’s thinking about it, as opposed to knowing about it like every other Republican seems to be (they didn’t have to think about it because a fetus was sent to them in a dream, or something). He’s wrestling with these two conservative values, state’s rights and discriminatory Constitutional amendments that will oppress half of the people they’re supposed to be leading. I think Steele comes through on the state’s rights bit like a real conservative.

And I think his views on abortion are at least in part due to race. Teen pregnancy and STDs hits the African American community more than the general population, so naturally, other African Americans are going to view the situation differently. The culture is different from the “just abstain, you dirty whore” crowd, so “just abstain, you dirty whore” doesn’t work (not that it works in the White community either, but it doesn’t even seem to be generating steam in the Black community). I had a nun as a classmate for about a year and a half in my Catholic graduate school. She’s originally from Nigeria. When she was approached by a pregnant teen who didn’t know what to do about her unwanted pregnancy, this Nigerian nun who works in the chapel at this Catholic school and is earning her degree at a reduced cost because of her status as a nun and an employee of the school, told this young woman that no one can make this decision but her. And while the nun didn’t say this, I think being pro-choice has a lot to do with her living in Nigeria where women didn’t have reproductive choice and died or were seriously hurt as a result. It doesn’t seem like the Republican Party takes minority cultures into consideration at all when coming up with their platforms. It’s alienating.

Something pretty obvious here is that all of the anticipation and excitement around weddings being The Bride’s Day just reinforces the K-Los of the world giving up so much self-determination and self-respect to a husband. They give it up, so they can have a wedding, and weddings are so awesome! (Feminist weddings, on the other hand, suck by definition.)

Clearly, it isn’t like that for everyone, but why is there that assumption that the bride is going to do all of the planning (and work) and that the groom doesn’t really care or have much of a role?

And, I am further troubled that, as a fellah, I have absolutely no interest in a big wedding and that anything other than a civil ceremony would be for the bride. I wouldn’t really care and wouldn’t have much a role, beyond what I’m asked to do of course. And I’ve had this conversation with girls where this is exactly what we planned would happen.

I’m not sure what to do about it. It just makes me kinda uncomfortable.

Don’t judge me.

Wrong thread. Damnit.

No, ha, right thread.  Fox’s new show is :“Who Wants to Marry Michael Steele???”

Two words: political suicide.  He’ll be out by this time next week, at the very latest.

I’m starting to think this was all a big act put on by the GOP so they can reject Steele as “too liberal” and fool the base into believing that they’re still “real conservatives”.

As soon as he gains some backbone, he will lose a bit of the base, but, I’m betting, bring the Republican Party into a place where fewer people will be embarrassed to be Republicans. That’s what his “mandate” is.

It wouldn’t, as they say, play in Peoria.

You’ve never been to Peoria, then.

As soon as he gains some backbone, he will lose a bit of the base, but, I’m betting, bring the Republican Party into a place where fewer people will be embarrassed to be Republicans. That’s what his “mandate” is.

That’s possible.  He’s making more middle-of-the-road statements on issues where the hardcore Republican positions—no recognition of gay relationships, no legal abortions, Rush Limbaugh—are not at all popular with the broader public, and particularly with younger voters.  I just think that this is an impossible proposition.  He has to take these positions if he wants to have broad appeal, but the Republican base will cast him out as a heretic if he does. 

I really don’t understand what’s going through his head.  He’s clearly not taking principled stands, because he backs down from everything he says the second he gets criticized.  Maybe he realizes that the ship is sinking, and is hoping to get thrown out, then write a book about being the first black leader of a failing Republican party.  But who would buy that?

I’ve got my own meandering, paranoid theory of how this whole thing works, but I figure it’d be bad form to paste it here.

I think the ‘pugs ought to time the dumping with the undisputed declaration - finally - of Al Franken as senator. Then they can either bury it in the “bigger” news or hype it to obscure the “other” news, depending upon whether the predetermined talking points are to play down the significance or trumpet their victory.

Just in case you guys missed it:
http://gold-platedwitchonwheels.blogspot.com/2009/03/pandagon-watch-with-democrats-running.html

Oh man how I laughed.