Now, Michael, boy, y’all jes put on these white britches and go stand on the lawn and smile pretty, now, y’hear.  We’ll take care of the money stuff.  Done cha be gettin’ all uppity on us now.

I’d imagine that right about now Steele is starting to feel a lot like the Eddie Murphy character in this sequence from the end of Trading Places (1983):

[Valentine (Murphy) overhears the Dukes talking in the bathroom]

Randolph Duke: Pay up, Mortimer. I’ve won the bet.

Mortimer Duke: Here: one dollar.

Randolph Duke: [chuckling] We took a perfectly useless psychopath like Valentine, and turned him into a successful executive. And during the same time, we turned an honest, hard-working man into a violently, deranged, would-be killer! [laughs]

Randolph Duke: Now, what are we going to do about taking Winthorpe back and returning Valentine to the ghetto?

Mortimer Duke: I don’t want Winthorpe back, after what he’s done.

Randolph Duke: You mean, keep Valentine on as managing director?

Mortimer Duke: Do you really believe I would have a n*gger run our family business, Randolph?

[Valentine’s eyes widen with outrage]

Randolph Duke: Of course not. Neither would I.

Not that “Step-N-Fetchit” Steele doesn’t deserve it. I’m sure his briefing by the party establishment resembled this earlier scene from the movie—minus Valentine’s reaction to the patronising tone and honesty about the real nature of the RNC’s “business”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Uv4ftekaI

In the Steele/RNC version of this scene, instead of calling the GOP establishment gangsters, Steele was probably slobbering all over Massa’s shoes in gratitude because he was invited into the big house. Not quite as funny as the movie version, I’ll grant you.

Honestly, this kind of scapegoating of Steele is pathetic.

Oh please, Steele has done a horrible job.  His fund raising has been pitiful, his candidate recruitment and endorsement has been fruitless, and his public appearances are the definition of FAIL.  Steele got his job in much the way that Palin got her’s.  It was an affirmative action pick used by one group of party elders to block a power grab by another group.  Steele wasn’t picked for his merits, he was picked for his ethnic and regional background - north eastern black moderate - in hopes that his links could reign in the GOP’s rush to Party of the South status.  And it didn’t work.

Steele is a bad leader.  The end.  Being black in a party full of bigots hasn’t helped him, but he’s done a whole lot of screwing up all on his own.

The Republicans needed a Howard Dean or even just a Chuck Schummer to revitalize their ranks.  Steele isn’t doing this job.  They’d be smart to drop him.

In the Steele/RNC version of this scene, instead of calling the GOP establishment gangsters, Steele was probably slobbering all over Massa’s shoes in gratitude because he was invited into the big house. Not quite as funny as the movie version, I’ll grant you.

And more than ever I wish Steve Gilliard could have lived to see this, because he’d be having the time of his life watching Steele get undermined by his own Party.

Well, Steele is probably an irredeemable idiot, but, one wonders if they’d given him any breathing space and room to manouver if he’d have been at least a bit more credible.

To me, he’s just one more Republican clown.  I have to wonder, though, how I’d feel if I were black* and saw this man shilling for a Party that does not have my best interests at heart.  Rage, sadness, all of the abov?.  I don’t like him but it’s getting to the point where I’m feeling sorry for him.  I hate to see any human being get kicked like a cur almost daily.  But then, the Rethugs believe in torture and, I hear, eat their young.

*I don’t mean to generalize but I bet the reaction while not universal is very wide spread.

What’s sad is that I’m sure Steele really thought he was going to break some serious new ground, and take the party in another direction

No, it’s not sad. Steele is, and always has been, a boot-licking apologist for the worst aspects of the GOP, because that’s the only political org that would allow a dimwit like him to fail upwards to a position of power based on pure tokenism. As his many appearances on Bill Maher’s show demonstrated, Steele’s an intellectual lightweight who can barely hold his own in a political debate against pop stars half his age, let alone run one of America’s 2 political parties.

If he didn’t know that people like Pullen, Norcross, and Limbaugh really called the shots, and if he really thought he could effect change, then it’s because he was a ambitious idiot who started believing his own BS. He gets no sympathy from me, nor does a party which deserves to go down in flames—whomever they use as a fall guy.

And more than ever I wish Steve Gilliard could have lived to see this, because he’d be having the time of his life watching Steele get undermined by his own Party.

Hard to believe Steve will be gone almost 2 years come June. It’s a cruel irony that he hasn’t seen the results of the “Fighting Liberalism” he advocated, nor the vindication of his views on Steele, the GOP Minstrel [see the Wikipedia link for details].

And of course this kind of disrespect will make Blacks and other people of color run to join the republicans in droves!

I notice that in the Washington Times article you linked to (which carried this as an “exclusive”), comments have been “temporarily disabled.”

Pop quiz: This temporary disablement will last until which condition is fulfilled?

1) The RNC no longer is headed by an African-American
2) The Republican Party gets rid of all its bigots

And of course this kind of disrespect will make Blacks and other people of color run to join the republicans in droves!

If black people could get this kind of disrespect from the GOP, you’d probably see better party identification.  Steele’s got a sweet gig and tons of cash for doing just about nothing right.  I mean, this is the Cadillac welfare queen t-bone eating young buck’s wet dream, right?

If only every black person were treated as well as old Mikey.

The realization that he doesn’t really matter is coming rather slow to Mr. Steele, isn’t it?

See, the GOP will look at this as confimation that Affirmative Action is all about appearances and not about substance.

Of COURSE Michael Steele failed.  He’s black, and therefore unqualified.  The white men taking control of the purse strings is just making it a bit more obvious, in case any part of the base was confused and thought Mr. Steele had any real authority.

POCs and women are by definition incompetent.  The most qualified minority or woman is less qualified than the least qualified white man.  This is why McCain couldn’t answer the question when asked why he picked Palin over Kay Bailey Hutchinson or some other more qualified woman.  Women cannot be qualified BY DEFINITION.  Hillary is just a face for Bill, who wasn’t allowed to run for president again.

The GOP was being called racist, and it is, but it doesn’t like being called racist, so it put a black face in the position of leader, but he was never meant to run things.  Black people being lazy and incompetent.  Steele is just the affirmative action face that you need for EEOC laws.

The GOP sincerely believes that Obama is unqualified and has someone maneuvering behind him.  That’s why they love to talk about him with a teleprompter—because there’s no way that he comes up with those speeches or the ideas in them on his own.

the only question is does Michael Steele recognize how he’s been used.  Did he think he could manage to make something out of the position anyway?  Or was he too dumb to realize the depth of the racism?

Cause there’s a bit of ‘proof in the pudding’ to the GOP racists.  Being so racist, most minorities are Democrats, especially those with brains and ambition.  There’s got to be a lot of self-hate to belong to the GOP as a minority or a woman, and that’s not really a good quality in a politician in the long run.

So the GOP isn’t attracting the best and brightest of any stripe, and especially not the best and brightest women and minorities.  Look at Palin: she’s been a mess as governor, but they nominated her for VP—and VP to the oldest President elect ever.

They really are racist, sexist assholes.  They really do believe that black people are less than.  They are completely unable to attract more people to their party b/c of those core beliefs.  How are they going to get more black people to be Republican when they so obviously hate black people?  How are they going to get more Hispanics, when they want to ship them all back to Mexico?  A random Coulter-type that bashes every other member of her group is allowed to have some fame and fortune, but only to reinforce the idea that only white men are worthy.

My grandma used to say, “If you lie down with dogs, you’re gonna get up with fleas.” Michael Steele being slowly ousted from his position is exactly what he deserves. Unless he really is as dumb as he looks there is no way he could have ever thought he’d have any real power as a black man in a racist party. He made his deal with the devil and (like clockwork) the devil bit him in the ass.

Steele is a bad leader.  The end.  Being black in a party full of bigots hasn’t helped him, but he’s done a whole lot of screwing up all on his own.

I agree.  I think it is possible to reconcile the fact that the RNC is a party of racist assholes with the notion that Steele is also a supremely unqualified leader for that party.

Steele’s very first test of leadership was an epic fail.  On D.L Hughley’s show, Steele made the observation that Rush Limbaugh didn’t speak for the party, that he was, “just an entertainer”.

Had Michale Steele stood by that assessment when Rush flipped out on him, Steele would have been exhibiting real leadership by standing up to the biggest bully in his party.

By cowering before Rush and slobbering all over him begging forgiveness for his transgression, Michael Steele showed that he is no leader at all, only a puppet, and that people like Rush Limbaugh would always get to pull the strings.

Steele had his chance to be an actual leader for the GOP - and he blew it, right out of the gate.

It’s really down to a contest of wills. The RNC understands that Steele is useless to them (although it’s not clear any of the white guys who campaigned for the job would have been any less ridiculous), but they don’t want to be the people who fired him only a few months after hiring him. So they’re going to try and circumscribe his job until he quits in disgust. But there’s really no reason for him to quit.

Gracchus,

I thought about Steve Gilliard often during the election season - when Obama announced his intent to run for president, when he became the nominee, when Obama became president, and various other times in between.

Steve Gilliard’s blog was one of the first I read regularly. I was so impressed with the depth in which he pursued his points, and how he really CARED about things. At that time in my life, I had gotten to the point where I started to think that everyone was so apathetic that nothing would ever change.

I miss Steve Gilliard, even though I never met him. I had never before cried when someone I didn’t know passed away…but I sat at my computer sobbing the day his death was announced. It seemed so unfair, to see such a brilliant mind and voice gone.

I can just imagine the glee with which Steve would be writing his blog posts if he were here to see Michael Steele prove himself to be exactly what Steve had said he was in that “controversial” post all those years ago.

Not to throw cold water on Gilliard-reminiscing—I respected the man as much as anyone—but I recall him being pretty sniffish about Obama.

Look, we can’t go back out and start pointing fingers at the Democrats and saying “look at how bad they’re performing, look at what they’re doing with the economy” when we jumpstarted this thing, we were the ones who put $700 billion on the table and said “alright, let’s start nationalizing the banking system.” So now for us stand back and go “oh look, that’s a bad thing to do” is disingenuous.

—RNC Chairman Michael “My Bad” Steele, appearing on Morning Joe, April 30, 2009

Michael Steele’s apology to Rush Limbaugh for merely existing coming in 5… 4… 3… 2…