On Thursday, several religious right officials and anti-abortion advocates criticized Steele for telling the magazine that he "absolutely" thought abortion was "an individual choice," to be decided at the state level.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: "Comments attributed to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele are very troubling and despite his clarification today the party stands to lose many of its members and a great deal of its support in the trenches of grassroots politics."
Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition: "I'm a little surprised that Michael Steele, being the leader of the Republican Party, is at odds with the pro-life platform, the platform that conservative put in place... If this is his viewpoint, he has made it be known. I'm just surprised that the leader of the party is at odds with the pro-life platform."
Evangelical leader Lou Engle: "Steele's argument that abortion is a matter of "individual choice" is extremely disappointing, especially in light of past statements in which he promised to protect and defend human life. "Steele's remarks to GQ indicate that he may be confused about "choice" and the "law." The law is supposed to protect human life, not permit the taking of it. And, it can never be a "choice" for an individual to take a life."
Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council: "I read the article last night so I am familiar not only with his comments about the life issue but also about the efforts to redefine marriage and 'mucking' up the Constitution. I expressed my concerns to the chairman earlier this week about previous statements that were very similar in nature. 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."
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Anybody ready to start taking bets?
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TNC,
Congrats on the Times blog mention http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/steele-under-fire/?hp
The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates (who is liberal and African American) wrote : “I’ve been reading about Steele for years, but I still have no idea why he’s a Republican. I’ve yet to get any sense of deep conviction from him. Colin Powell, I got. Condie Rice, I got. I even get Clarence Thomas. But what I get from Steele feels almost like a hustle.”
Uh oh, quoted in The Times, Coates!
Go ahead with your bad self..LOL
All of these comments from the pro-lifers are establishing the foundation for his removal. The GOP probably can't jettison him just yet, but now they know that both Limbaugh and the Perkins crowd are not going to protest if he's removed. Steele may not realize it, but he's in deeper water than he suspects.
Steele's gone, no question--he was a hard sell from the beginning and he's made the unpardonable error of being a laughingstock early in his tenure. Compare him to Howard Dean, who was also a hard sell in his position--Dean put his head down, got to work building the party, and stayed out of the spotlight for the first few months of his tenure at the DNC. He didn't give snipers a target to shoot at. But Steele's been doing everything but walking up to people who already don't like him, putting guns in their hands and daring them to shoot. Not the best way to keep a job lots of people didn't want you to have in the first place.
I give him two weeks, tops. What are my odds?
Steele's got a month, but only because booting him out within two weeks would feel make the GOP feel racist.
I said it before, but Steele's big problem is he says "YES" to everything he "hears". You can totally read his mental calculus in this one- "Hmm, this guy's a journalist for a somewhat-hip magazine. Bet he's liberal. Tack left, make him happy!"
Zic, I think the GOP is going to fall all over itself with congratulations for not being racist by hiring Steele in the first place. That he has allowed them to replace him with someone who won't use confusing words like "hip-hop" by lousing up his job in an almost balletic fashion is his own foolishness.
This has not been a good last two years and four months for the GOP.
Coates in the Times?!?!
Cue The Jeffersons theme song!
The base actually is racist, but yes.
Anyway this is all very good news... for John McCain!
The Times! It's the big time now, baby!
I don't know exactly how long Steele's got, but it's not very long. A few weeks. Maybe a month. Maybe some "family" will suddenly pop up that he has to go "spend time with." But he's in hot water.
Totally agree on not feeling Steele as a Republican. It feels like he's pulling a fast one. Like he saw that it was easier to move up the ladder in the GOP than with the Dems, so he chose the elephants. I don't get any sense of deep commitment to whatever the Republicans think they stand for. He's got opportunist written all over him.
Which, among other reasons, is why he'll be booted from the post. Even the Republicans can see through his shtick.
you guys seen this...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/us/politics/13waters.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
i am so sick of these hustlers hiding behind "black community". BET anyone?
The Times bit is just a goodbye present from Douthat.
If they don't put him in a dark room somewhere, he's going to fubb up in some interview and intimate that civil unions are acceptable and then all hell is really gonna break loose.
Once you're off the party message trifecta (Miniorities/immigrants, gays, and abortion) your Republican political career is dunzo.
At this point, I'm beginning to think that the entire GOP is just a marketing ploy dreamed up by Orville Redenbacher.
I don't know about that quote that used from you, TNC. Juan Williams is going to take it out of context and call you a "Stokely Carmichael with a blog."
One thing we ought to have learned by now is that the Republican Party base doesn't mind if a politician is a doofus as long as they consider that politician "one of them."
We saw that with their support for President Bush.
We saw that with the backlash against Harriet Miers, who ultimately went down not because of her lack of qualifications but because of the right's suspicion that she wasn't pro-life.
We saw that with Palin, whom the base loves despite (or perhaps because of) her lack of qualifications.
If not for his recent comments on abortion, Steele might have been accepted by the base as another Bush/Palin, someone only the out-of-touch liberal elites don't "get." In that situation, he could have survived politically, at least for a while. But now, he's entered Miers territory, and we know what happens then....
Comes from the great Kool G Rap:
The place we put the nickle-plate is to your facial
Bullets ain't racial kid, they only hate you...
I'd have to read his wikipedia entry to remember why Stokely Carmichael is considered to be so offensive, but I met the man (in his Kwame Toure days) and he was very charming.
Never did I think the Repubs would crash and burn this quickly. They thought they were electing their own Great Black Hope---and the guys turns out to be a monumental fuck-up a mere weeks later.
Pure comedy.
Coates
Ruh Roh, now we got some black on black crime!
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/12/blackwell-steele/
On the other hand...
http://rightwingnews.com/mt331/2009/03/get_off_michael_steeles_back.php
Like I said, I think he stays till after the elections next year.
If they don't put him in a dark room somewhere, he's going to fubb up in some interview and intimate that civil unions are acceptable and then all hell is really gonna break loose.
Head on over to Sullivan, he already has.
Really, though, the problem is not with Steele. Or, okay, not just with Steele. He's in an impossible position. The vast majority of the people in this country want to see at least some flexibility on gay rights and abortion questions.
Hardcore opposition to any recognition of same-sex partnerships and to female self-determination are not very popular positions, and no one outside The Base likes Limbaugh. But the Republican Party won't tolerate any heterodoxy on these points at all.
So to expand respect for the Republicans, he has to take a softer stance on these issues. But if he takes those position, the Republicans will cast him out as a heretic.
So he's stuck, and whoever they get to replace him will be in the same bind (though hopefully without the embarrassing Dorky-Dad-Trying-to-be-Cool misuse of slang).
"At this point, I'm beginning to think that the entire GOP is just a marketing ploy dreamed up by Orville Redenbacher."
LMAO!!! Good one.
As I commented here early last week, Mr. Steele is a goner at the RNC. No management chops, no credibility, even more so now. After reading the entire GQ article here are my take-aways: Mr. Steele is deeply in love with the sound of his own voice and however contradictory it may appear, is both an ego-maniac and relentlessly eager to please whoever he is talking to at the time. Generally speaking these traits, to at least some degree, apply to many if not most politicians, but the successful politicos control these tendencies and use them as tools in their trajectories. Mr. Steele apparently has no self control and the only tool he has is the shovel he is using to dig a deeper hole for himself.
As a former long time republican who was and is pro-choice and pro-civil rights for all Americans (including gay marriage) I applaud any effort to bring these increasingly mainstream American values into the GOP. But with his incoherence and incompetence, Mr. Steele has passed the point of diminishing returns. In fact, the only coherent and consistent views I could spot in the entire GQ piece were Mr. Steele's fashion commentaries on the Oscars, Hollywood red carpet moments and the Obama's inauguration night attire.
Steele's main problem is that he wants to be liked and admired by his interviewer. So each time he does an interview, he sways towards the views of the person doing the interview. When he is being questioned by right-wing outlets, he goes right. And when it is a left-wing outlet, he tacks left.
Its not his fault, he has some abandonment issues from being adopted. So he tries to please that person in these solo interviews. This is not an insult, just a fact, coming from an adoptee and wife of an adoptee.
"relentlessly eager to please whoever he is talking to at the time"
If that's true, how do you explain the incident where he compared stem-cell research to the Nazi medical experiments--in front of a Jewish audience? Did he really think that was a way to ingratiate himself to Jewish voters?
"Did he really think that was a way to ingratiate himself to Jewish voters?"
If you notice, he only does this with 'one on one' interviews. When he is speaking to groups, its a different dynamic, and he feels safer to distance himself.
"Did he really think that was a way to ingratiate himself to Jewish voters?"
Actually, maybe. Look at the exact quote-
"You of all folks know what happens when people decide they want to experiment on human beings.... I know that as well in my community, out of our experience with slavery, and so I'm very cautious when people say this is the best new thing, this is going to save lives."
It seems pretty clear to me he's doing an, "I understand what you've been through/I'm with you" routine in the first two clauses. It backfired spectacularly, but then, so has everything else he's said in the national spot light.
Kylopod, I think Mr. Steele used that really stupid analogy to communicate to his Jewish audience what he apparently believes is the heinous nature of stem cell research. In Mr. Steele's mind, such as it is, Jewish people hate Nazis, stem cell research is a Nazi-esque practice, ergo, Jewish people should hate stem cell research. Yet another example of his misguided if not monumentally stupid efforts to please his audience--of one or of many. Of course, who knows what he really believes? Does he? If Ms. P. is right and like many adoptees, Mr. Steele has real abandonment issues than maybe he's not stupid, just unutterably sad.
Again, based on my reading of the GQ interview and his own self professed enthusiasms, perhaps Mr. Steele's best next career opportunity would be to replace Tim Gunn on "Project Runway."
These nitwits are just dead set on sinking their ship. As a fan of comedy, I find it awesome. As a fan of divided government, I wish they'd get their shit together at some point.
Oh, God. I just realized. They'll replace him with Ken Blackwell, won't they?
Yet another example of his misguided if not monumentally stupid efforts to please his audience
Interesting. I had assumed he was simply trying his best to explain his views to an audience by choosing a focal point he thought they could relate to. The tactic did backfire, of course, but I thought that at least his stance stemmed (no pun intended) from deep Catholic convictions. Even his later backtracking, where he said he supports embryonic stem-cell research that doesn't destroy the embryo, suggested to me that he was simply doing a poor job of defending what were unquestionably strong personal beliefs.
Now, I have no idea what he really believes.
If you examine the GQ interview in total isolation from anything else he's said, his statements about abortion sound perfectly reasonable and consistent. But how do they square with his belief that embryos are full-fledged human beings? And his subsequent turnaround, just like his 48-hour about-face on Limbaugh, cannot be explained as anything but wimping out.
This is what the GOP gets for making one of the shills RNC Chairman. Micheal Steele has always been one of the GOP's shills who whored himself out to give the image of being a diverse party. There is too much actual black talent and smarts in the Democratic Party for a hack like him to compete. Haven't you guys noticed the plethora of black conservative talking heads on TV? Far more on average then the actual voting habits of blacks would require. Steele, Palin and Jindal all represent the "soft bigotry of low expactation" that the GOP had for minorities and women. Just window dressing to appear diverse when the GOP hasn't given a damn about real diversity in 40 years. They hyped these triffling jokers up and when they were put center stage they imploded because they are lame and mediocre. When a party makes a real effort to appeal to all demographics you get a Barack Obama to lead your party. When you spend 40 years on the Southern Strategy you get a Michael Steele. It's quite simple really. No wonder the GOP hates affirmative action, they don't know how it really works and that, yes merit, brains and talent matter even when trying the level the playing field.
Kool G, one of the best that ever did it. Steele gets what he deserves and the republicans continue to flounder. Its a win-win. Not that the Dems will move even slightly left of center.
"This is what the GOP gets for making one of the shills RNC Chairman."
I think most of the chairs of the RNC and DNC are shills. That's essentially what their job is. To describe Steele's problem as shilliness is to give him way too much credit.
1. His statement that abortion is an individual choice, but is decided by the state is totally contradictory. It still removes choice from the individual level.
2. "it can never be a "choice" for an individual to take a life."
There are actually 2 lives at stake, the mother's and the fetus. roe v. wade balances the risk between the two. In the first trimester, the mortality rate for childbirth is higher than for abortion. If the court outlawed all abortion, more women would die in childbirth. The court backs away from mandating that every woman who gets pregnant has no choice but to walk that riskier path to childbirth.
Those risks change over time. As the pregnancy develops, and as the fetus approaches viability, the state has a stronger interest preserving that life too, so the states are allowed to regulate late term abortion more tightly.
This whole thing of abortion being a zero-sum game at conception is bunk.
His statement that abortion is an individual choice, but is decided by the state is totally contradictory.
No, it isn't. It's called federalism.
His statements in the GQ interview do contradict his later statements endorsing a Human Life Amendment, but what he expresses in the interview itself is pro-choice federalism, a perfectly coherent position held by many constitutional scholars.
I'm confused by your title. Every example you give is someone rationally disagreeing with his apparent opposition to a bedrock GOP policy. How is this evidence of racism?
I guess, what I'm saying is, he states "I think that's an individual choice" but his Federalist stance actually removes choice from the hands of the individual and makes it a collective decision.
That's contradictory.
It's not contradictory to believe in giving power to states to enact laws you may not approve of. What Steele expressed in the GQ interview (and later backtracked on) was similar to my own stance on marijuana. I think marijuana should be legal, but at the same time I think the issue should be decided on a state-by-state basis, not by federal mandate (or worse, a Supreme Court decision). I may disagree with states that prohibit it, but I prefer that the power rests with them than with the federal government. Therefore, I believe marijuana should be an "individual choice," but at the same time, as a legal and constitutional matter, I think the choice of whether to ban it or legalize it should be left up to the states. That is not a contradiction; it is the essence of the federalist perspective.
the federal government granted abortion rights to individuals not to the states.
if the government gave states the power to prohibit abortion, it would take that decision away from individuals.
Which means that is it no longer an "individual choice."
Uhh mj. The title says "ain't racist." I don't think this a post arguing for GOP racism.
The title also says "They Only Hate You", which also has no support in the post or article. I took it to be ironic (from your point of view), since otherwise it makes no sense at all.